RURAL EDUCATIO 
THECONSOLIDA 




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RURAL EDUCATION AND 
THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 



SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 
MONOGRAPHS 



&ntrerson 

Education of Defectives in 
the Public Schools 

Rural Education and the Con- 
solidated School 

a&uttertoortf) 

Problems in State High School 
Finance 

Hatott 

Record Forms for Vocational 
Schools 

The Public and Its School 
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Standards in English 

An Experiment in the Fun- 
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SCHOOL EFFICIENCY MONOGRAPHS 

RURAL EDUCATION 

AND THE 

CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 



BY 
JULIUS BERNHARD ARP 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 
JACKSON COUNTY, MINNESOTA 



ILLUSTRATED 




YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 

WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

1918 



WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE 
Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson 

YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 

2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 

Publishers of the following professional works : 
School Efficiency Series, edited by Paul H. 
Hanus, complete in thirteen volumes; Edu- 
cational Survey Series, three volumes already 
issued and others projected ; School Efficiency 
Monographs, eight numbers now ready, others 
in active preparation 



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Copyright, 1918, by World Book Company 
All rights reserved 

©GI.A492928 



TO THE MILLIONS OF COUNTRY BOYS 
AND GIRLS IN AMERICA, AND TO ALL 
WHO FEEL AN ABIDING INTEREST 
IN RURAL AMERICAN LIFE, THIS 
BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

MUCH has been written of late concerning the Rural 
School Problem. All students of country life seem 
to agree that a radical readjustment of the entire rural 
educational and social system, to fit modern conditions, 
is imperative ; but while a few of the leaders have hewn 
close to the vital spot, none so far have gone straight to 
the heart of the subject. 

The author is convinced that the time has come when 
we must insist upon a full program of reconstruction from 
the ground up, and begin to build at once. The gist of the 
problem is to establish a new school in which the essentials 
of a modern education can be taught. The old school, 
as still found in over ninety per cent of the rural districts, 
does not lend itself to such a program ; and no amount of 
repair, addition, varnish, or veneer will transform it into 
an efficient, modern institution. Rebuilding is absolutely 
essential. 

Some friends of the rural school advocate comprehensive 
changes in the curriculum and justly demand that the 
training of country boys and girls shall culminate in a 
complete industrial and vocational education, adapted 
to twentieth-century life. They are agreed that rural 
teachers must measure up professionally and otherwise to 
their colleagues in our best school systems ; they recognize 
that salaries paid must be adequate to insure high-class 
training and instruction ; and yet — they fail to see that 
these things are impossible in an obsolete school system 
in which the first elements of success are wanting. 

The one-room school must go. It cannot provide the 
education to which country boys and girls are entitled and 
which the welfare of the country demands. Contrary to 
some excellent authorities on rural schools who have given 

[vii] 



PREFACE 

the matter careful consideration, but who have overrated 
the obstacles to consolidation, it is quite probable that at 
least eighty per cent of all the country schools can be recon- 
structed to meet the new demands and that all but twenty 
per cent of the one-room schools can be merged into high- 
class, graded, consolidated schools. Abundant proof is 
available in every state today, showing that supposed ob- 
stacles to this revolutionary change have existed largely 
in the minds of the rural people. The immediate and 
paramount duty of every leader in rural education, there- 
fore, is to clarify the public mind on the subject and com- 
pel attention and unbiased consideration. Progress in 
consolidation is now so rapid and so uniformly successful, 
and its blessings are so obvious, that rural teachers and 
superintendents alike should become enthusiastic disciples 
of the new school. 

Absolute faith in the idea and efficacy of consolidation is 
preeminently the message of this little volume. If the 
criticism of the present rural school system herein expressed 
will be received in the same kindly spirit in which it is 
offered, the book's mission has been accomplished. May 
it receive and merit the careful reading and consideration, 
not alone of rural teachers, superintendents, supervisors, 
and students of rural education, but of that vast body of 
American farmers of whose very life, thoughts, and ideals 
it endeavors to treat candidly, fearlessly, and sympatheti- 
cally. 

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the several 
state departments of education, county superintendents, 
teachers, and friends who have given valuable information, 
suggestions, and criticism. To lend a helping hand in 
solving the rural school problem is the object and aim of 
Rural Education and the Consolidated School. 

J. B. Arp 

[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

I. Rural Education and Rural Life 1 

II. Rural Readjustments 11 

III. Rural School Administration 23 

IV. Rural School Organization and Support 32 

V. The New Rural School 48 

VI. The Curriculum of the School 67 

VII. The Rural High School 91 

VIII. The Rural Community and Its Needs Ill 

IX. The Rural Teacher 145 

X. Transportation of Pupils and Cost of Con- 
solidation 160 

XI. Past, Present, and Future of Consolidation 182 

Bibliography 203 

Index 209 



[ix] 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

High school at Spirit Lake, Dickinson County, Iowa . Frontispiece 

OPPOSITE PAGE 

Agricultural laboratory of consolidated school at Alberta, 

Minnesota 56 

Work of boys' manual-training class in consolidated rural 

school at Kirkhoven, Minnesota 84 

The "round-up." Indiana corn-club members who have 
won trips to Purdue University to attend the State 
Corn School and One Week Short Course 108 

A modern farm home 116 

Canning Club Day at the University of Chattanooga, 
Tennessee. Boys' and girls' club workers who have 
come to Chattanooga for an annual field day 140 

Consolidated school and manse, Alberta, Stevens County, 

Minnesota 156 

Domestic science class of consolidated school at Brewster, 

Nobles County, Minnesota 164 

The Brewster, Minnesota, consolidated school and its auto 

busses 164 



[x] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND 
THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE 
CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

CHAPTER ONE 

Rural Education and Rural Life 

"TTTHAT the best and wisest parent wants for his 
▼ ▼ own child, that must the community want for 
all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow 
and unlovely. Acted upon, it destroys our democracy." x 
This beautiful conception of the mission of the public 
school as expressed by Dr. Dewey is a worthy ideal to 
place before the American people ; but to Education and 
educate all the people of a democracy to a democra cy 
full realization of such a standard, and £ desire for it, 
would be little short of reaching the millennium. We 
may well set it up as a beacon light for the nation; but 
let us not deceive ourselves by thinking that it is a goal 
within easy reach. The best we can hope for is to keep 
the road to this ideal open for all the people, and the 
best we can do is to strive to increase the number of cit- 
izens sufficiently intelligent and eager to want such an 
education for themselves and their children. Meanwhile, 
the number who actually reach the higher level in our 
educational system is, and will continue to be, compara- 
tively small. Our school problem, therefore, is not so 
much to take care of the favored ten per cent at the top 
of the educational ladder as to minister to the ninety per 
cent struggling below. In so far as we succeed in pro- 
viding an adequate education for this overwhelming 
majority — an education that shall be practical, sane, 
* Dewey, The School and Society (University of Chicago Press), page 19. 

[i ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

and well rounded — and in so far as we succeed in placing 
it within the reach of all the children of all the people, 
in just so far shall we make our country a democracy in 
fact as well as in name. 

That, at present, we are far from this essential con- 
dition of a true democracy, no one who is familiar with 
our public school system, or its product, will attempt to 
deny. Misconceptions, inequalities, and defects are 
found in the best-conducted school systems of the nation, 
when measured by the test of real democracy ; but there 
is no defect more glaring today than the inequality that 
exists between the educational facilities of the urban 
and the rural communities. Rural education in the 
United States has been so far outstripped by the educa- 
tion of our urban centers that, from an educational 
standpoint, the country child is left far behind in the 
struggle of life. It will take the wisest educational 
leadership of the present to remove this serious menace 
and avert ultimate disaster to the rural population. The 
greatest educational problem now facing the American 
people is the Rural School Problem. It must be solved, 
and it must be solved by the friends of the rural school 
who understand its needs. 

The social, economic, and industrial changes of the 
last fifty years have been marvelous indeed. Agricul- 
Some factors tural methods had been slowly improving 
to be con- since ancient times, but of late progress has 

been so rapid that many have failed to grasp 
its significance and its bearing upon life and society. 
Consider for a moment certain facts. In the time of 
Nero, with the crude tools at his command a Roman 
slave spent the equivalent of three days of irksome toil 
to produce a bushel of wheat. With more modern agri- 
cultural appliances, in the days of Abraham Lincoln, 

[2] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND RURAL LIFE 

it was possible for the farmer to accomplish this feat in 
three hours. Today, thanks to the genius of the McCor- 
micks, Stephensons, Fords, and other master minds, 
with the aid of binders, steam threshers, gas tractors, 
and quick communication, the same work may be done 
by one man in less than ten minutes ! With such strides 
in the cheap and rapid production of foods and other 
agricultural products, significant changes and readjust- 
ments have taken place. The ability to supply neces- 
sities of life cheaply and in abundance has caused a 
marked shifting of population from country to city, and 
from an agrarian people with simple habits we have 
become, in large measure, an urban people with a highly 
complex social and industrial life. 

Furthermore, prosperity has given rise to leisure, and 
leisure has been followed by spiritual improvement, 
comforts, and pleasures. The effect of all this has been 
felt more quickly in the city than in the country. The 
reason is that city life is adapted to teamwork and de- 
mands it, while the more or less isolated life of the rural 
community tends toward conservatism, individualism, 
and fixed habits of thought and action. Rural people 
have, therefore, been as tenacious in resisting changes 
as city people have been willing and eager to adopt them. 
Consequently, an unfortunate line of cleavage between 
the two has created a class distinction threatening the 
future welfare and tranquillity of our commonwealth. 

In a land of freedom which boasts of equal opportunity 
for all, it is unthinkable that any pronounced and abiding 
privileges shall be enjoyed by one class of citizens and 
denied to another, whether such distinction be due to 
economic, social, educational, or other conditions. The 
constant aim of a true democracy should be to reduce 
distinctions and privileges to the minimum, and to seek 

[3] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

the welfare and happiness of all the people, in all walks of 
life, at all times, in all circumstances, with equal care, 
solicitude, and justice. To do this requires the wise 
leadership of men and women who are devoted to the 
principles and the spirit of democracy and brotherhood. 
Especially are such leaders needed in the training of the 
young, from whose ranks the citizenship of a nation is 
constantly recruited. Whenever we differentiate greatly 
between the education of boys and girls in the country 
and those in the city, we are in danger of engendering 
class distinctions, castes, and social strata that work 
dissension and strife. Rural life and rural education are 
at present suffering from lack of real leadership, and the 
country boys and girls of America are not getting a square 
deal. While the education of the urban child has kept 
pace with the progress of the age, that of the country 
child is still primitive and inadequate. Why is this? 

To get a clear conception of the rural school problem, 
its history must be understood. "The little red school- 
house" of bygone days, that played so 
weakness of prominent a part in pioneer life, has been 
rural school lauded in song and story and has won for 

system 

itself a place in the hearts and affection of 
the common people. It had a unique setting, was pecul- 
iarly an American institution, and was a distinct adjunct 
to pioneer rural life. In Europe, particularly in western 
Europe, the rural population is concentrated in villages ; 
and just as its social life is the group life, so its school 
system is the graded system. One-teacher schools are 
established only where the number of pupils is not suffi- 
cient for a graded school, and where they do exist, they 
are put in charge of mature, forceful teachers, equal 
in training and ability to those in similar grades of the 
larger systems. Quite the reverse is true in America, 
[4 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND RURAL LIFE 

and the explanation is found in the conditions attending 
the settlement of the country. 

In very early colonial days, the danger of attack by 
hostile Indians, the weakness of the individual settlements, 
and the necessity for cooperation, all compelled people 
to live in close proximity to one another and thus build 
up villages and towns; but soon afterwards the sturdy 
American pioneer pushed on fearlessly and single-handed 
into the wilderness of forest and plain. There he settled, 
either upon his "clearing" or upon his prairie claim, 
often separated by many miles from his neighbors and 
friends. Under such conditions the number of children 
found in any community was seldom large enough to 
form a permanent school in a definite spot. Moreover, 
the majority of the early settlers, being poor, had to 
struggle hard for the bare necessities of life. Conse- 
quently, school terms were short, attendance was low, 
and teachers were miserably paid and poorly qualified 
for the work. The whole school was crude and primitive 
in the extreme, but as life in those days was exceedingly 
simple, in both the open country and in the towns, and 
school work did not go far beyond the "three R's," a 
school of this kind served the needs of the people fairly 
well. Its fundamental defects were not recognized until 
much later, when the children trained in such schools 
faced the altered, complex life of a modern community. 

As long as towns were mere hamlets, similar in manner 
of life to the open country and with school systems but 
slightly graded or slightly different from the typical 
rural school, the discrepancy between village and rural 
schools was not striking. Later, however, when villages 
and cities grew rapidly, they developed not only first- 
class graded elementary schools, but secondary schools 
as well. Meanwhile the one-room country schools con- 

[5] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

tinued as before and became so firmly rooted in our great 
agricultural sections that nothing short of heroic effort 
could convince the rural communities of the inherent 
shortcomings of this school system. Custom, with a 
grip of steel, held to the original conception of this school, 
though in the external and minor details it changed 
somewhat. The little log schoolhouse had been replaced 
by the little red schoolhouse, and this, in turn, had been 
painted white or some other color. It was also a little 
more spacious and pretentious, but its essential nature 
had not been altered in the least. To win the approval 
of the patrons, three requirements had to be met : (1) it 
must be within walking distance of every home, (2) it 
must be subject to local control, and (3) it must be a 
one-room school. Any departure from this ideal was 
viewed with suspicion and alarm. To break away now 
from a system so firmly established and so widely dis- 
tributed over the country is a task that has tried, and will 
continue to try, the souls and patience of consecrated 
men and women; but it must be accomplished in order 
to redeem the rural school from stagnation and inefficiency, 
and to save rural life from monotony and worse social ills. 
Education and life are firmly knit together. The more 
closely they articulate, the better for the people. As 
why the one- l° n & as coun try life was primitive and simple, 
room school is there was little need for technical, specialized, 
or so-called higher education. A thorough 
training in the "three R's" and sound instruction in 
morality and the principles of democracy sufficed for the 
limited needs of the time. Thus equipped, a man could 
cope successfully with his fellows in the race of life ; and 
where, a generation or two ago, these schools were placed 
in charge of strong and virile young men, they served 
their purpose admirably. But with the highly complex 

r 6 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND RURAL LIFE 

social organizations of modern times, the country school 
with one teacher is entirely inadequate to meet the demand 
for technical skill, or to lay the foundation for a successful 
life. Its inefficiency is due, however, to a totally different 
condition of life and society rather than to a poorer 
teaching force. On the whole, the rural teacher of today 
is greatly superior to the pedagogue of fifty or even of 
twenty-five years ago, although it is to be regretted that 
the low salaries paid and the insecure tenure of the posi- 
tion do not warrant young men of ability in entering the 
ranks. The majority of the country teachers now have 
a better academic and professional training than their 
predecessors. They are more mature when entering the 
service, and they labor under more favorable environ- 
ments. Buildings, equipment, and books are vastly 
better than formerly, and our teachers are not lacking 
in energy, diligence, devotion, and eagerness to succeed, 
nor in a proper conception of their duty. They are simply 
facing a task so tremendous that no man or woman can 
master the situation until the rural school has undergone 
a complete transformation. 

Little by little we have added subjects to the rural 
school curriculum until the country teacher is now ex- 
pected to train her pupils thoroughly in the following 
studies : reading, writing, drawing, spelling, arithmetic, 
language, geography, history, grammar, music, physiology 
and hygiene, civil government, agriculture, domestic 
arts, manual training, and kindred industrial subjects. 
Moreover, many of these must be subdivided to fit the 
various ages and grades of the pupils who attend the one- 
room school. Consequently, the daily program of the 
average country teacher is loaded down with twenty -five 
to thirty-five daily recitations which cover the entire 
field of primary, intermediate, and grammar grade work. 

[7] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

It would take a person with an iron constitution, and one 
endowed with a wonderful adaptability, to handle a range 
of subjects from the kindergarten to the high school 
with any degree of success. Even if one could endure the 
physical strain of such a task, time is lacking to hear the 
recitations properly, supervised study is out of the ques- 
tion, and intensive work along any line becomes a mere 
dream. 

The problem confronting the rural teacher is a problem 
of the division of labor. The system is at fault and must 
be reorganized until every rural school, not absolutely 
isolated by the physical conditions or topography of the 
country, shall become a part of a larger school system, 
having a graded school of more than one teacher — in 
brief, a centralized or consolidated school. 
, Not until President Roosevelt appointed the Country 
Life Commission and its comprehensive report was given 
such wide publicity, did the country realize 
better school that a nation- wide crisis existed in rural-life 
system conditions. He struck the keynote of the 

situation himself when he said, in making the appoint- 
ment, " Good crops are of little value to the farmer unless 
they open up the door to a good kind of life on the farm." 
In other words, the human interest transcends the mate- 
rial. Men are worth more than money, and a happy home 
is more to be desired than silver and gold. 

Judging from government reports, the American farmer 
was at that time apparently on the highroad to success, 
and his financial status was good. The wealth of the 
farms was measured in billions of dollars; crop yields 
— at least in the aggregate — were on the increase ; 
and labor-saving machinery had taken away some of the 
drudgery and had made farming more profitable than 
ever before. But when the report of this commission 

[8] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND RURAL LIFE 

laid bare the real conditions in which the American 
farmer, in too many cases, was compelled to live and 
raise his family, it was both a revelation and a shock to 
the people. From every corner of the land echoed and 
reechoed the voice of the reformer, and platform, pulpit, 
and press let loose a flood of suggestions — good, bad, 
and indifferent — for the improvement of rural life. 
Newspaper men and magazine writers penned elaborate 
articles on the newly coined catch phrase, " Back-to-the- 
farm," and offered scores of visionary schemes for re- 
lieving a bad situation. In the minds of the novices was 
a hazy picture showing the arrested influx of people from 
the country to the city, a counter current started from 
the city to the country, and the unemployed of the con- 
gested urban centers made over, in some miraculous 
manner, into successful and contented farmers. 

The superficial nature of this view of the problem was 
soon exposed by those who had given the matter earnest 
and thoughtful attention. A careful analysis of the 
report left no doubt that the remedy lay in another 
direction and called for a redirected rural life. It also 
made the two chief causes of the cityward movement 
stand out in bold relief; namely, (1) an unsatisfactory 
social life, and (2) an antiquated and inefficient rural 
school system. Fully four out of every five persons who 
gave their reasons for leaving the farm and moving to 
the city, laid the blame at the door of the rural school. 
This indictment has since challenged the attention of men 
and women everywhere. Can any one seriously defend 
a school system of today which offers to the rural people 
(who compose nearly fifty per cent of the entire popula- 
tion) nothing more than an eighth-grade education, with 
a school term so short and other conditions so unfavorable 
that seventy-five per cent of the twelve million American 

[9] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

country school children do not complete the work of the 
grades? Is such a system in keeping with the demands 
of our twentieth-century civilization ? 

O. J. Kern, in his book, Among Country Schools, ob- 
serves : "If I were to formulate an educational creed for 
the country school, it would contain but two articles; 
namely, (1) the country child is entitled to every whit as 
good an education as that enjoyed by the most favored 
child attending the American public school ; (2) to secure 
this right for the country child, the country people must 
expend more money on the country child and expend it 
in a better way." Likewise, Professor Ellwood P. Cub- 
berley says, in his Rural Life and Education: "About 
one lialf of the school children of the United States are 
enrolled in the rural schools, and perhaps ninety per 
cent of the children of the rural population receive no 
other education. That the education provided for such 
children is what it ought to be, or might easily be made 
to be, few will maintain. Rural children are entitled to 
something better." Similar thoughts are now expressed 
by scores of the best educators of the nation ; and hopeful 
signs of an awakening in rural districts lead one to believe 
that the dawn of a better day for the education of country 
boys and girls is at hand. 



[10] 



CHAPTER TWO 

Rural Readjustments 

IN the final analysis, all animal life, including the 
human, is dependent upon plant life for its existence ; 
and very early in the history of the race man came face to 
face with the problem of supplementing nature's store of 
plant food by systematic tilling of the land The importance 
and crop production. Not until the race of a s riculture 
knew how to get a living from the soil with some degree 
of certainty, by cultivating plants to feed both man and 
beast, could habitations be fixed, governments be per- 
manently established, and civilization take shape. Nor 
were leisure, improvement of the mind, and a higher level 
of life possible until food was produced in abundance and 
the struggle for existence became less acute. The plow 
has broken the ground for civilization; without the per- 
fection and multiplication of farm tools in modern times, 
our twentieth-century culture would have been impossible. 
Behind all the progress of man, lies the unfolding and the 
unfolded agriculture of the ages. 

Fortunate, indeed, is the land that is blessed with broad 
and fertile fields which furnish ample stores of food, cloth- 
ing, and shelter for its people. The lack of striking 
these has for generations menaced the very illustrations 
existence of less favored nations, and looms like a dark 
cloud on the horizon of a thickly populated country when- 
ever the arteries of trade are clogged by war or other ob- 
struction. The acute shortage of food which prevailed 
throughout the leading nations of Europe beginning with 
the third year of the great world war, when each party to 
the struggle resorted to a relentless blockade of the enemy's 
coasts and frontiers, is a vivid illustration of the impor- 
tance of agricultural resources to any land. Another 

\ 11 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

modern example where a nation's food supply was seri- 
ously threatened for want of agricultural lands occurred 
recently in Japan. Its population had increased very 
rapidly after the empire threw open its doors to the world ; 
and by 1908 Japan had a population of more than 
49,000,000, or 336 people to the square mile. Since a 
large part of the islands is unfit for agriculture, the average 
holding of land per family was but two and one half acres. 
This was not sufficient to feed its people, and unless the 
importation of foodstuffs could be relied upon, Japan faced 
the alternative of seeing some of her citizens starve or of 
finding an outlet for her surplus population. This finally 
culminated in the annexation of Korea and was the basic 
reason for the Russo-Japanese War. 1 Whatever else may 
be the duties of a government toward its people, the first 
and primary duty is to feed, clothe, and shelter them. 

Our own agricultural wealth and fertile farming lands 
have in the past seemed so abundant that we have been 
extremely wasteful in the production of crops and lavish 
in the distribution of rich farm lands at almost nominal 
prices. This God-given heritage we have continued to 
exploit by a system of soil robbery until, with the swift 
changes of the last two decades, serious consequences are 
beginning to threaten. To the superficial observer it 
must indeed seem strange that a country capable of pro- 
ducing during the season of 1916 more than five billion 
dollars' worth of wealth from its four principal crops — 
corn, cotton, wheat, and hay — and increasing that yield 
to the enormous total of over eight billion dollars during 
the season of 1917, the first year of our war against Ger- 
many, should be concerned about supplying its own popu- 
lation. But if the present rate of increase of city people 
over country people continues, the American farmer must 

1 See Alfred Stead's Japan by the Japanese. Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904. 

[ 12] 



RURAL READJUSTMENTS 

change his methods and largely increase his production 
per acre, or fail to raise sufficient food for the nation. 1 

The United States is now without a rival in the produc- 
tion of food supplies, but it is far from being an efficient 
agricultural country. To make such a claim, her farmers 
should be able, with more intensive cultivation and a fully 
developed scientific agriculture, to double, or even treble, 
the nation's agricultural production of today. This is 

1 Statistics Covering a Few of the Leading Farm Products op 
the United States as Estimated by the Secretary op 
Agriculture 

FOR THE SEASON OF 1916 



Product 



Corn 

Wheat . 

Oats . . 
Potatoes 

Barley . 

Hay . . 

Cotton . 



Total Production 
(Bushels) 



2,583,241,000 

639,886,000 

1,251,992,000 

285,437,000 

180,927,000 

89,991,000 tons 

11,511,000 bales 



Average 


Yield 


PER 


Acre 


24.4 


bu. 


12.1 


bu. 


30.1 


bu. 


80.4 


bu. 


23.6 


bu. 


1.64 tons 


156.3 


lb. 



Average 

Price per 

Bushel on 

December 1 



$.889 
1.693 

.524 
1.461 

.882 
11.21 perT. 

.196 per lb. 



Total Value 
Based on 
Price of 

December 1, 
1916 



$2,295,783,000 

1,025,765,000 

656,179,000 

417,063,000 

159,534,000 

1,008,894,000 

1,080,000,000 



FOR THE SEASON OF 1917 



Produc 


Total Production 


Average 
Yield per 


Average 
Price per 


Total Value 
Based on 
Price op 




(Bushels) 


Acre 


Bushel on 
December 1 


December 1, 
1917 


Corn 


. 3,159,494,000 


26.4 bu. 


$1,283 


$4,053,672,000 


Wheat . 


650,828,000 


14.2 bu. 


2.009 


1,307,418,000 


Oats . . 


. 1,587,286,000 


36.4 bu. 


.669 


1,061,427,000 


Potatoes 


442,356,000 


100.8 bu. 


1.229 


543,865,000 


Barley . 


208,975,000 


23.7 bu. 


1.137 


237,539,000 


Hay . . 


95,030,000 tons 


1.22 tons 


16.50 per T. 


1,567,325,000 


Cotton . 


10,949,000 bales 


155.7 lb. 


.277 per lb. 


1,451,819,000 


Beans . 


15,701,000 bu. 


8.6 bu. 


6.52 per bu. 


102,426,000 


(six state 


s) 









[ 13] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

not only possible, but may even be accomplished in the 
next generation. The startling revelations about a world 
shortage of food supplies soon after we entered the war in 
the spring of 1917, and the appeal that came to us from the 
Allies across the Atlantic, were but powerful reminders to 
the American people that this country was regarded as the 
granary of the world and the savior of hungry and starv- 
ing Europe at that critical time. More important still 
was the lesson it taught us that, as a permanent food pro- 
ducer, America must be aroused to the urgent and imme- 
diate need of modern scientific, intensive, and efficient 
farming, both in war and in peace. 

Professor Cubberley, in his Rural Life and Education, 
has divided American country life into four general periods, 
Changes in each of which differed markedly from the 
rural conditions others. The first was the period of the pio- 
neer, extending from colonial days until 1830 ; the second 
was the period of transformation and expansion, between 
the years 1830 and 1860 ; the third period, from 1860 to 
1890, was characterized as that of the home builder ; and 
the fourth may be termed the period of commercial farm- 
ing, accompanied in certain sections by a rapid increase 
in tenantry. This last period extends from 1890 to the 
present day, and its latest aspects are scientific agriculture 
and social cooperation. 

In a somewhat similar classification Dr. Warren H. 
Wilson l divides the American country community into 
the periods of the Pioneer, the Land Farmer, the Exploiter, 
and the Husbandman. Of these he says in substance : 

The Pioneer lived alone from choice. "He placed his 
cabin without regard to social experiences, and self-pres- 
ervation was the struggle of his life." He hunted, plowed, 
harvested, reared his family, lived, and died alone. 
1 The Evolution of the Country Community. Pilgrim Press, 1912. 

[ 14 1 



RURAL READJUSTMENTS 

"The Land Farmer was the typical American country- 
man who succeeded the Pioneer, swarmed over the country, 
and sought everywhere the first values of a virgin soil. 
His ambition was to make his own farm and his own family 
group prosperous without regard to neighbors or com- 
munity. The Land Farmer had no idea of community 
prosperity." 

The Exploiter has been designated as "the tuberculosis 
of American farm life." He was not a farmer or a tiller 
of the soil, but a land speculator, bent on frequent buying 
and selling of land, "bulling the market and living on the 
unearned increment of farm lands." Next to the saloon 
keeper, the Exploiter has perhaps been the greatest single 
factor in the increase of poverty and the creation of slums, 
both rural and urban. 

The Husbandman was the last to come on the scene. 
He is the scientific farmer, wedded to the soil, a home 
builder and a community builder as well. He is not only 
a scientific producer, but a scientific manager. He has 
the larger view of community life, happiness, cooperation, 
prosperity, education, citizenship, and personal worth. 
He is the future American farmer. 

The changes in American rural life during the four 
periods just mentioned were most profound and have, in 
the aggregate, produced effects little short of Meaning of 
an agricultural revolution. Especially strik- these changes 
ing are the following : (1) the shifting of population from 
rural sections to urban centers, (2) an altered rural social 
life, and (3) an economic evolution. In 1790, only about 
three persons in a hundred lived in a city of eight thousand 
inhabitants or more; and such cities were less "urban" 
in those days than places of a thousand inhabitants are 
today. Ten years later, in 1800, only 4 per cent of the 
people were urban and 96 per cent were rural; nor did 

r 15 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

this ratio change much until 1830. By 1880, however, 
the city population had increased to 29.5 per cent, and by 
1910 to 46.3 per cent of the total population, while the 
rural population had correspondingly decreased from 70.5 
per cent to 53.7 per cent, with the movement still con- 
tinuing in the same direction. More astonishing still is 
the fact, based on the above figures, that while in 1880 
about 44.4 per cent of the population were actual pro- 
ducers and feeding the remaining 55.6 per cent of non- 
producers, in 1910 only 32.9 per cent were engaged in 
feeding the remaining 67.1 per cent. 1 

In spite of these statistics we have been slow to take 
warning of the approaching danger lurking in an insufficient 
food supply, and our wasteful farming methods have gone 
merrily on. In the decade from 1900 to 1910, the United 
States produced but an average of 14.1 bushels of wheat 
per acre, on land that had been farmed less than a century, 
while Germany produced 28.9 bushels and the United 
Kingdom 33.1 bushels per acre, on land that had been 
cultivated for a thousand years or more. Under still 
greater pressure of population the Chinese get even larger 
returns than the Germans or the English; and they get 
them from soil that has been cultivated for four thousand 
years. Mrs. F. H. King, in her book, Farmers of Forty 
Centuries, reports a case where a Chinaman supported 
himself, his wife, ten children, a donkey, a cow, and two 
pigs from a farm of two and a half acres. Fancy an Anglo- 
Saxon accomplishing this feat on a farm of ten acres ! 

The shifting of population is not difficult to understand. 
Previous to 1830, farming operations were primitive and 
The drift to called for the labor of many hands. Owing 
urban centers to slow and costly methods of transportation, 
both commerce and manufacturing were in their infancy 
1 See Lapp and Mote's Learning to Earn, for further details. 

[ 16] 



RURAL READJUSTMENTS 

and there was no incentive for city building. Conse- 
quently, only twenty-six cities in the United States had a 
population of eight thousand or more by 1830, and four- 
teen of these had less than twelve thousand each. But 
with the advent of railroad building and improved farm 
machinery during the period from 1830 to 1860, crop pro- 
duction increased enormously, cities sprang up as if by 
magic, foreign markets opened up because of cheap trans- 
portation, and commercial farming became profitable. 
Not only did the new industries begin to draw farmers into 
the cities and towns, but the improved farm machinery 
actually made it possible to produce the increased crops 
with less farm labor than before, and the cityward migra- 
tion started in earnest. 

Somewhat later, especially during the eighties, a tem- 
porary overproduction of farm crops and consequent drop 
in prices greatly accelerated the movement. At the same 
time, a steady stream of wide-awake, energetic, and am- 
bitious young farmers flowed to the cities, lured by the 
new, strange, and fascinating life and the tales of fortune 
and business successes of former neighbors and friends. 
These men were usually replaced by a much inferior or 
totally different class of farmers or farm hands, to the 
detriment of the rural community. A similar effect was 
produced by the migration of a class of older, intelligent 
farmers who had grown sufficiently wealthy to afford 
greater comfort to their families and better educational 
facilities for their children than the country school pro- 
vided. They seldom disposed of their farms, however, 
but rented them to an indifferent and poorer class of ten- 
ants, and thus further impoverished the rural social life. 

Still another factor in this movement was the rapid rise 
in the price of farm lands, which made the buying of farms 
a safe and attractive investment, and men of means began 

[ 17] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

to buy up land or enlarge their holdings of rented farms, 
so that the number of farms in many states was actually 
decreased while the average size of the farms was mate- 
rially increased. 

Accordingly, the four great agricultural states of Ohio, 
Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri suffered a decrease in rural 
population during the decade from 1900 to 1910, while a 
dozen others had an increase of less than ten per cent. At 
the same time, the city population in all these states grew 
by leaps and bounds 

These altered conditions naturally made great changes 
in the social life of the farmers. The struggle, hardship, 
Effect on unremitting toil, and loneliness of the pioneer 

social life severely tested the courage and endurance of 

men and women and left but little time or opportunity for 
culture and refinement ; but their manner of life was con- 
ducive to uprightness, honesty, integrity, morality, and 
strict attention to duty. They were a sturdy, self-reliant, 
and independent class of people, well fitted to cope with 
the dangers and privations of pioneer days. Amusements 
were few and simple, and of leisure there was none worth 
mentioning. 

But with the introduction of labor-saving machinery 
these harsh conditions quickly gave way to better homes, 
comforts, improved roads, leisure, and pleasures; and 
country life in the period just preceding the great cityward 
movement was quite pleasant and agreeable. Until then, 
the better farming regions were settled largely by a homo- 
geneous and intelligent American population, cherishing 
common aims and ideals, and mingling freely in social 
functions and community gatherings. The rural church 
had strength and virility, and it trained both young and 
old in acts of courtesy, loyalty, respect, and obedience. 
Its denominational zeal had a tendency to make people 

f 18 1 



RURAL READJUSTMENTS 

aggressive, emotional, and strongly individualistic, so that 
leadership was not wanting and rural life was far from 
being monotonous. A close second to the country church 
in those days as a community institution was the country 
school, where granges, debating societies, literary clubs, 
political gatherings, and other neighborhood activities 
brought people together frequently in pleasant intercourse. 

The cityward movement, however, wrought havoc 
among these conditions. In the first place, it took from 
the farm men and women of the best type and replaced 
them with others having lower standards or with foreign 
immigrants of the less desirable classes, whose customs, 
ideals, and habits of life differed greatly from our own; 
and, in the second place, it resulted in substituting tenant 
farmers for resident owners at an alarming rate. According 
to government statistics, the percentage of tenant farm- 
ers in the United States in 1880 was 25. 6 per cent of the 
total number. It was 28.4 per cent in 1890, 35.3 per cent 
in 1900, and 37 per cent in 1910, and is still on the increase. 
In typical Southern states like Georgia and Alabama, the 
tenant farmers already outnumber the resident owners, 
and they are rapidly gaining on the resident freeholders 
in states like Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and others in 
the rich agricultural Mississippi Valley. In the extreme 
East and the newer states of the West, tenant farmers are 
less numerous than elsewhere. 

There has also been a notable change in the later foreign 
tenants. Formerly, the European immigrants who settled 
in rural American communities came mostly from the in- 
telligent and desirable races of northern and northwestern 
Europe. They had much in common with our people and 
readily adopted American standards and customs; but 
in these latter days our foreign tenants have come largely 
from the poorer and less educated class of southern Europe. 

[ 19] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Their coming has complicated the rural problem immensely 
because they have little in common with the Anglo-Saxon 
race and are slow to conform to American manners of life. 
Owing to the diversity of unassimilated nationalities and 
the conflicting elements in rural communities of today, 
social solidarity has been impaired and community in- 
stitutions have lost their prestige. In thousands of places 
the rural church is suffering from non-support, stagnation, 
and decay ; and the rural school has also been most seri- 
ously affected. Efficient rural leadership is at a premium, 
although it is of first importance in redeeming American 
country life from its present social and educational ills. 
This phase of the problem will be fully treated in subse- 
quent chapters. 

The economic evolution of the American farmer forms 
a remarkable chapter in our national history. From the 
The economic want and privations of early days, the farmer 
evolution £ rs |. roge j. Q a j-j? e Q j? reasona bl e returns for his 

labor, then to the enjoyment of snug profits, and finally 
to economic independence and affluence. The unhealthy 
feature of this success has been the enormous increase in 
the price of farm land, from which source the wealth of the 
farmers has mostly been derived. High-priced farm land 
has now become a distinct menace to the future farmer of 
moderate means, since it makes farm ownership difficult 
for those who are not wealthy ; and ownership of land has 
been throughout all ages looked upon as "the poor man's 
rock of defense." Unreasonable land values tend to con- 
centrate the holdings in the hands of a few rich landlords ; 
threaten the actual worker of the land with unjust and high 
rents ; aggravate "the high cost of living" ; and foster the 
obnoxious European system of absentee landlords and in- 
different, malcontent tenants. Every true friend of de- 
mocracy and every lover of American freedom should 
[20] 



RURAL READJUSTMENTS 

lend his counsel and aid to correct this vicious tendency. 
Here is a distinct call to the country teachers and the 
country schools for enlightenment, efficiency, and in- 
telligent social service. The case reminds us of Gold- 
smith's ominous but prophetic lines in The Deserted Village : 

111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; 
A breath can make them, as a breath hath made; 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 

We must emphasize two immediate and pressing needs ; 
namely, a new social life and a new agricultural education. 
Socially and morally, we must set for the coun- 

. , ! i 1 * Fundamental, 

try people a higher and better standard or present needs 
living. Not only do we need sober, indus- ofrural 

. -, America 

trious, and honest farmers ; but we must turn 
a prevailing cold, calculating, dollar-getting, and prosaic 
attitude into an intelligent, sympathetic, alert, and eager 
desire for a better kind of country life. The farmers should 
share with their city cousins the benefits and blessings of 
government and democracy, since they share their duties 
and tasks. They have too long been content with less 
education and enlightenment for themselves and their 
children as compared with city people, and have made 
poor use of their leisure hours. Wholesome recreation, 
organized play, and community amusements must replace 
some of the coarse and questionable pastimes. They are 
the best antidote for monotonous rounds of duty and un- 
congenial neighbors. Grown-ups and children alike must 
join in this and keep the fires of community cooperation 
burning. Every township needs a community center — 
preferably a central school building with ample grounds 
and equipment for social service — to minister to both the 

[21 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

educational and the social needs of the patrons and make 
life in the country delightful and profitable. 

Rural orchestras, bands, literary societies, athletic 
associations, clubs, and other organizations are not only 
feasible but comparatively easy to maintain in country 
communities. When judiciously handled, things like 
these will transform a dead and indifferent country dis- 
trict into a happy, bustling, progressive, and pleasant 
place. They turn men's minds from thoughts of money- 
making to the real joys of living. 

The most potent influence in bringing about the changes 
just outlined will be the redirected country school of the 
future. The description of this school we shall take up 
later, but will say in passing that when fully developed, 
it will be an institution worthy of the support of all and 
will be the greatest single asset of the community. In 
such a school we shall train the farmer boys and girls to 
lives of usefulness, appreciation of their work, and the 
understanding of scientific principles and practical needs 
of their chosen occupation. Its teaching will be in har- 
mony with the beauties of God's great out-of-doors, the 
best in literature and art, culture and refinement, and the 
nobler aims of life. It will be a school with a program, a 
purpose, and a message. 



22 ] 



CHAPTER THREE 

Rural School Administration 

THREE great dead-weights that hang like millstones 
from the neck of rural school progress are : (1) the 
lack of real, professional supervision; (2) the small, 
district unit of taxation; and (3) the untrained teacher. 
Of these evils, the first two are the natural Barriers to 
outgrowth of our rural school system as progress 
evolved in connection with the settlement and agricultural 
development of the country. They fastened themselves 
upon an unsuspecting public until they became so firmly 
imbedded as part and parcel of the whole scheme that it 
is almost impossible to shake them off. Students of 
rural education are a unit, however, in saying that both 
supervision and organization must undergo a radical 
change if the country school system is to come into its 
own; and there is no doubt that with a new type of 
supervision and a better unit of organization, the un- 
trained teacher would quickly disappear. The securing 
of strong, professional, and efficient superintendents for 
all county school systems should be the immediate con- 
cern of every state. It is the first step in the betterment 
of rural schools. Without the leadership of high-minded, 
devoted, and trained men and women, progress will be 
sporadic and slow; but with it, improvement will be 
swift and sure. 

To get the right perspective of the typical county 
superintendent of schools in America, one must cross 
the Appalachian Mountains and look about in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, or beyond. When Congress carved out 
of the Northwest Territory the states of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, and others, it set aside one section of land in 
each township as an aid to public education. From the 

\ 23 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

income of this land was to be created a school fund to 
assist such states in the maintenance of their public 

school systems. In order to handle the money- 
superintendent thus received and allotted to each county for 
a jL el ® cted school purposes, and to apportion the same 

to the various school districts of the county, 
Illinois chose a suitable person in each county to perform 
that duty. Since at first the work of the office was 
entirely clerical and financial, the most natural way of 
selecting such an official was to elect him by popular vote, 
as in the case of other county officers. But the appor- 
tionment of school money and the keeping of a record 
of the same was a comparatively easy task and left this 
person with time hanging heavy on his hands, so that 
succeeding legislatures added "other duties'* to the office. 
Among these were the following : visiting schools, exam- 
ining and licensing teachers, collecting statistical infor- 
mation and reporting the same to the state superintendent, 
holding teachers' institutes, etc. By degrees, therefore, 
the duties of the county superintendent of schools, as he 
was called, became very largely professional instead of 
clerical; but the method of electing him remained the 
same. 

Since the only qualifications fixed for other county 
officers were that they must be resident, qualified voters 
of the county, the same qualifications naturally held 
good for the county superintendent. Thus arose the 
highly ridiculous and almost tragic anomaly of requiring 
no educational qualifications whatsoever of candidates 
for county superintendent of schools, while the teachers 
whom they supervised and upon whose qualifications 
they passed judgment were not allowed to teach in the 
poorest school of the county without first submitting 
proof of at least some educational and professional quali- 
[ 24 ] 



RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

fications. It was small wonder, therefore, that the office 
of county superintendent became the football of political 
chicanery; and, frequently, religious affiliation, nation- 
ality, sympathy, partisanship, or some other extraneous 
or local consideration decided the election of the county 
superintendent, rather than education, fitness, or ex- 
perience in the work. 

The example having thus been set by some of the states 
in this region, the plan was readily copied by neighboring 
states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, and others. Consequently, we have at the present 
time twenty-eight states, out of a total of forty-one states 
in the Union which have by law provided for county 
superintendents of schools, that choose these guardians 
of public education by popular vote. They usually 
expect the candidates to make a political canvass for the 
job, stump the county for both primary nomination and 
general election, pay political assessments, issue campaign 
literature, and repeat this performance every two or four 
years in order to retain their positions. 

It is true that some states have tried to improve upon 
this method of selection by placing at least some educa- 
tional qualifications upon the candidates for the office; 
but even this modification has done little to raise the 
standard of county superintendents in such states. The 
viciousness of the system lies in the political election. 
The people of a county are asked to fill a highly technical 
and professional position by popular vote when the in- 
dividual voter can have no opportunity of examining 
into the real fitness and merits of the candidates. Ob- 
viously, the county superintendent should be chosen by 
a small board of school officers, selected from the county 
at large, which has ample time and opportunity to examine 
carefully into the character, fitness, education, and general 

[ 25 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

qualifications of each candidate for the office. The 
person so selected should then be held responsible to this 
board for results. 

Popular election of county superintendents has proved 
to be a failure everywhere, but it remained for the two 
states of South Dakota and Washington to cap the climax 
in this method by providing that it should be unlawful 
or unconstitutional for a county superintendent to serve 
more than two consecutive terms in any one county. 
An office, therefore, which should be bestowed only upon 
a person who has made long and adequate preparation 
for the position and who has entered upon his career 
with the express purpose of making it his life work, auto- 
matically becomes the educational graveyard of every 
county superintendent in those states at the end of four 
years. It seems incredible that the intelligent electorate 
of a great state should ever place a law of that kind upon 
its statute books or disgrace its constitution with such 
a provision; but these are cold facts, and meanwhile 
thousands of innocent country boys and girls must suffer 
the consequences of such measures. This is not mere 
folly : it is asininity sublime. 

If rural people are ever going to secure the services 
of professional county superintendents, a different method 
of choosing them must be provided. As in 
the case of city superintendents, they should 
be selected entirely upon merit, training, experience, 
and without regard to county or state lines. Political 
considerations must be completely wiped out. The 
choice should preferably be vested in a small county 
board of education, consisting of from three to six members 
who are in sympathy with rural life and education. This 
board should have general oversight of all country schools 
in the county and should be clothed with legal authority 

f 26 1 



RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

to enforce all reasonable rules and regulations for the 
building up of an efficient county school system. It 
should elect the county superintendent for a term of 
years, fix his salary, audit and allow reasonable traveling 
expenses of himself and his assistants, equip the office 
for prompt and effective service, confer upon him broad 
powers of supervision and administration, and then hold 
him strictly responsible for results. In short, this board 
should sustain to the county superintendent practically 
the same relation which the city board of education sus- 
tains to the city superintendent. High-class leadership 
is the soul of every well-regulated school system, and 
such leadership cannot ordinarily be obtained or retained 
under the old elective system. Men and women of 
ability and vision will soon lift a county school system 
out of its ruts, but to do so they must first be lifted out 
of the mire of petty partisan politics themselves and 
placed upon a high level of professional standing. 

Happily, a number of states that do not elect their 
county superintendents by popular vote offer a variety of 
methods for choosing such officials. In Dela- straws show- 
ware they are appointed by the governor. In *? g the dkec " 
New Jersey they are appointed by the state educational 
commissioner of education and approved by wind 
the state board of education. Virginia and Nevada have 
so-called " division superintendents," chosen by state boards 
of education. A " division " in Nevada may contain from 
one to six counties, while those in Virginia consist of one 
or two counties each. New York has a system of super- 
visory districts whose superintendents are chosen for a 
term of five years by the district boards. Only four of 
these districts comprise an entire county ; all others are 
but parts of counties. Pennsylvania elects its county 
superintendents by a board of school officers in convention 

[27] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

assembled; and in the following states they are chosen 
by county boards of education, varying in size and differ- 
ently constituted : Maryland, Louisiana, North Carolina, 
Indiana, Georgia, Iowa, and Ohio. In Tennessee the 
county court appoints the superintendent. 

Practically all these systems are an improvement over 
the election by popular vote, but they are not entirely 
free from objections and the following observations are 
pertinent : Appointment by the governor or a single 
state official is unwise except in very small states, because 
such an official is too far removed from the local situation 
and the method also leaves room for "political patronage." 
The Tennessee idea is illogical because the connection 
between the county court and the county school system 
is hard to discover. Excellent results have followed the 
appointment of superintendents by state boards of edu- 
cation that are themselves professionally constituted. 
They usually select high-class superintendents if the 
salary is at all in keeping with the work required; but 
the idea smacks a little too much of centralized authority 
at long range. New Jersey pays excellent salaries to 
the county superintendents and has made a success of 
this plan. The convention scheme of Pennsylvania, 
or the large county boards of Indiana and Iowa, would 
be vastly more efficient if they were not so unwieldy. 
These large county boards can hardly become efficient 
administrative bodies of a county school system, and 
they are also more susceptible to political manipulation 
if they have but little other business relation with the 
county superintendent than merely electing him to his 
position. 

The ideal way of selecting the county superintendent 
is doubtless the appointment by a small county board 
of education. Its connection with the work of the super- 



RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

intendent and the county schools should be sufficiently 
close to make the board "a power behind the throne." 
It should lay down broad lines of procedure only, leaving 
all details and professional matters to the judgment of 
the superintendent, and it should have the financial 
backing, provided by law, for building up a strong county 
school system. 

In the East, Maryland has had a fairly good county 
board system for many years, but its powers were greatly 
strengthened and its value enhanced by wise legislation 
passed in 1916. l 

In the West, Iowa has but recently changed from the 
elective system of superintendents to the appointive 
system by a county board; but a decided improvement 
of rural school supervision and administration is already 
apparent. The weakest point in the new law is that the 
county board is too large and clumsy and lacks adequate 
powers to build up an effective centralized school system. 
In Utah the office of county superintendent has been dis- 
placed by that of the district superintendent, who has 
supervision over all rural and free schools of his entire 
county. In a few instances the county is divided into 
school districts, each district having its own superintend- 
ent. The district superintendent is elected by a district 
board chosen by the people, and need not be a resident 
of the district or of the state. 

In the South, Louisiana has beyond question the most 
efficient county system, called parish system in that 
state, and is making wonderful progress in its rural schools. 
All things considered, it is putting many of the older and 
richer states to shame. 

In the Central states, Ohio is the latest state to create 

1 Report of the United States Bureau of Education for 1916, Vol. I, 
Chapter 12. 

f [29] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

county boards of education, with power to elect profes- 
sionally qualified county superintendents. This is but 
one of the many excellent provisions of the new code 
of school laws in Ohio, of which Commissioner P. P. 
Claxton has said, " It is doubtful if there has ever been 
more constructive and progressive school legislation 
enacted by a single session of the legislature in any state 
within the last half century." The new school system 
may be called "a mixed county and district system"; 
and the admirable blending of local and county control 
is worthy of special attention. The old district boundaries 
and the local boards remain, retaining their former powers 
but restricted by the powers of the new county board. 
The presidents of the several boards of education, in 
both the village and the rural districts, elect a county 
board of education consisting of five members. This 
board has general control and supervision over all county 
schools except city schools and certain village schools, 
the latter of which may be excluded from their control 
by vote. The principal powers and duties of the board 
are the following : (1) the election of a county super- 
intendent of schools, professionally qualified for the posi- 
tion; (2) power to transfer territory from one school 
district to another and to readjust district boundaries ; 
(3) it must divide the county into suitable supervisory 
districts consisting of one or more school districts, each 
of which elects its own district supervisor upon recom- 
mendation of the county superintendent. The executive 
head of the county board is the county superintendent, 
to whom the board delegates all professional work con- 
nected with the county schools and whom it holds strictly 
responsible for results. Ohio certainly has reasons to 
be proud of the rejuvenation of its entire school system 
by legislation of this character. 
[ 30 1 



RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

For more than ten years, Minnesota has kept up a 
strenuous fight in successive legislatures to rid itself of 
an abominable political elective system of county super- 
intendents, which requires no other qualifications for 
that office save that the candidates must be resident 
voters of the county. So far, all efforts have been in vain. 
The politicians sit tight and block all progress. Other 
states have had similar experiences, and improvement 
in rural school supervision, the country over, is still ex- 
tremely slow ; but all indications point to the small county 
board idea as the best escape from a bad situation. 

It must not be supposed from the preceding discussion 
that the rural schools, which have had to contend with 
some or all of these handicaps, have been 

What some 

entirely devoid of the leadership of high- superintend- 
minded men and women. On the contrary, entshave 

. achieved 

scores of devoted superintendents m every 
part of the nation, and in every state of the Union, have 
risen above all obstacles of law and custom and have 
revolutionized their respective county schools and pro- 
foundly affected the rural life situation. They have 
fearlessly battled against ignorance, sloth, and obstinate 
opposition; and have championed the cause of country 
boys and girls with a fidelity, patience, vision, and con- 
fidence in their work that challenges our admiration. 
Far be it from any one to cast reflections upon their work 
or underestimate their success. The task confronting 
us now is to make this kind of leadership possible and 
reasonably certain in every rural school system of the 
country. 



[SI ] 



CHAPTER FOUR 

Rural School Organization and Support 

WITH respect to organization and support, the dif- 
ferent American states exhibit four main types of 
school systems — the district, town or township, county, 
and state systems. The state system, however, can 
Types of school hardly be regarded as an organization unit, 
systems but is more truly a unit of supervision and 

support. It is superimposed upon the other three systems, 
which it binds into one organic whole for the purpose 
of inspiration, improvement, standardization, super- 
vision, and financial aid. It is usually presided over by 
a state board of education, state school commissioner, 
state superintendent of education, or state superintendent 
of public instruction. These officers, in turn, are aided 
by corps of assistants and inspectors. State systems are 
growing in importance in every state. 

As already indicated in Chapter III, the district system 
is the natural companion of our one-room rural school. 
i. The district It is nearly as old as the settlement of the 
system country itself; it has held sway in nearly 

every state, for a time at least, and is still the basic school 
organization in more than half the states. People have 
come to associate the all but absolute "home rule" of 
the small school district with "pure and undefiled democ- 
racy" and cling tenaciously to the prerogatives that this 
system brought with it from the earliest times. His- 
torically, the pioneers of rural America formed school 
districts in advance of any laws on the subject and as 
soon as the few families of a neighborhood started a 
public school. Such districts varied greatly in size and 
shape, not only in the separate states, but in the same 
state at different periods of its development. This varia- 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

tion still obtains to a remarkable degree in the newer 
states of the West, and in the more recently settled por- 
tions of older states. Thus Minnesota exhibits a varia- 
tion, from the extremely small country district of three, 
four, or five sections of land in the southern part of the 
state, to the mammoth, so-called "unorganized district" 
in St. Louis County, west of Lake Superior, a district 
which embraces 90 townships, is larger than the states 
of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, has 115 school- 
houses within it, and employs 145 rural teachers. But 
this is an exceptional type, and only a few of them are 
found in the sparsely settled counties of northern Min- 
nesota. In most of the states, as population increased, 
school districts multiplied until finally the older states 
in which the district system prevailed had from four to 
a dozen school districts for each township, with a be- 
wildering maze of district boundaries. 

Pioneer districts had virtually complete control over 
all their school affairs, save for a nominal supervision of 
an advisory nature by county or state school The weakness 
officials. The voters of the district and the of this 
local board, consisting ordinarily of three s y stem 
trustees or supervisors, could select school sites, build 
schoolhouses to their liking, vote the taxes for buildings 
and maintenance, fix school terms, hire teachers, pre- 
scribe the course of study, etc., without let or hindrance. 
This sort of control became so firmly rooted during the 
slow economic development of early days that the same 
halo of sentiment which surrounded the "little red school- 
house" also attached itself to the small school district 
with its local control. The indictment against the dis- 
trict system is that, for the meager results produced, it 
is expensive, wasteful, inefficient, unprogressive, totally 
inadequate to present-day needs, and unfair to country 

[ 33 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

children. Its supposed democracy is a delusion, for true 
democracy in education means equal opportunities for 
the children of one district with those of other districts 
and also a fairly well-equalized financial burden for the 
patrons. In both these respects, the small district fails 
completely. 

A small school has been aptly characterized by Presi- 
dent T. J. Coates of the State Normal School of Rich- 
mond, Kentucky, as follows: "The average farmer and 
rural teacher think of the rural school as a little house, 
on a little ground, with a little equipment, where a little 
teacher, for a little while at a little salary, teaches little 
children, little things." Had he added to this description 
that the above institution is located in a little district 
with a little assessed valuation, in which people of little 
vision do little for themselves and their little children, 
the picture of a typical rural school in a typical rural 
district of the old kind would have been complete. Thank 
God that the American farmer is beginning to see the 
injustice his children have to suffer now from such a system. 

A great handicap and weakness of the small district 
system has always been the multitude of school officers 



7 boards / 3,500 

control and direct -> I , 

memb^nr- » teachers 



The city school system 

chosen to administer its affairs. If a school board of 
from five to seven members can effectively direct the 

1 34 ] 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 



school affairs of a city enrolling from 25,000 to 100,000 
pupils and employing hundreds or even thousands of 
teachers, no stretch of the imagination can figure out why 
the rural schools of a county enrolling 4000 pupils and 




The rural school system 

employing 200 teachers should elect 600 school board 
members to direct those teachers and their schools. It 
would be fully as sensible to raise an army and appoint 
three officers for every enlisted private and then expect 
efficiency and economy from that army by making each 
group of three officers entirely independent of every other 
group and making all officers of equal rank and power ! 
Experience everywhere has conclusively proved that the 
small district form of school organization is the worst 
possible; and it has been condemned by educational 
leaders for more than half a century. District taxation 
will be considered at the end of this chapter under the 
head of school support. 

This type of organization is a distinct advance over 
the district system and will gain in importance as "school 
townships" resolve themselves into consoli- 2 Thetown 
dated school districts, with not more than or township 
one or two central schools in each township s y stem 
instead of the numerous, small, one-room schools now 
existing. It is prominent in the New England states, 
where a single board, called the Town School Committee, 
manages both the graded and ungraded schools of the 
town (township). A commendable fairness and solici- 
tude for the welfare of both classes of schools is shown by 

[35] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

most committees, and the district lines of former days 
have been obliterated except for the purpose of classi- 
fication and attendance. The town system of these 
states is superior to that of certain North Central states 
which have what is commonly referred to as "the town- 
ship system" of common schools. This usually excludes 
the independent village schools from the jurisdiction of 
the township board and limits the board's control to the 
ungraded rural schools. In some of these states the 
township system is really a mixture of both district 
and township type, nor is it uniformly adopted by all 
counties. 

Since the township board is farther removed from the 
petty neighborhood strife and narrowness of the small 
district, the system affords a better basis for equalizing 
educational opportunities and school taxes, reduces the 
number of school officers, and makes for greater effi- 
ciency. It is a step in the evolution of the district system 
into something better. 

When rightly conceived and ably developed, the county 
school system can be made an admirable unit of or- 
3. The county ganization and control. The administration 
system should be in the hands of a small county 

board, with power to elect a competent superintendent 
as head of the system. The board should possess the 
legal authority to levy a uniform county school tax for 
maintenance within definitely prescribed limits. The 
following additional powers and duties are also vital and 
necessary : the fixing and alteration of district boundaries, 
the consolidation of schools, the erection of school build- 
ings, the furnishing of books and supplies, the hiring of 
teachers, determining and fixing of a uniform school term 
for the entire county, and the formulating of a broad 
educational policy for the school system. All professional 

[36] 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 
THE PEOPLE 



County Board of Education, Elected by the People 

Powers and duties: (1) Form school districts; (2) Alter boundaries of districts; 

(3) Elect county superintendent ; (4) Hire teachers ; (5) Consolidate schools ; 

(6) Build schoolhouses ; (7) Buy books and supplies upon recommendation of 

superintendent; (8) Levy school taxes within limits fixed by law. 



County Superintendent, Elected by the County Board 

Powers and duties : (1) Appoint assistants; (2) Nominate all teachers; (3) Plan 

course of study ; (4) Recommend textbooks and supplies ; (5) Supervise, direct, 

and visit teachers; (6) Shape the educational policy of the county; (7) Act as 

executive officer of county board. 

The ideal county system 

matters should be left to the superintendent. His judg- 
ment should rule in the selection of textbooks and sup- 
plies, he should prepare suitable courses of study, no 
teachers should be employed except upon his recom- 
mendation and nomination, and the superintendent and 
board should have regular meetings for consultation and 
transaction of business. The superintendent should be 
ex officio a member of the board, with full power to discuss 
any matter coming before it, but without the right to 
vote. 

A system thus centralized does away with the gross 
inequalities and the niggardly policy of local support 
that is so conspicuous and so deadening in the district 
system. The county system is more logical and efficient 
than either township or district system, but if adopted, 
it should not entirely obliterate all local subdivisions. 
Many minor functions of administration should be left 

[37] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

for local trustees, who would act as representatives of 
both the central authority and the local community and 
stimulate local pride on the one hand, while seconding 
the efforts of the central authority on the other. 

In the Southern states, where the county has always 
been the predominating political unit and where the 
county systems township and small district have never 
in evolution played an important part in local govern- 
ment, the opportunity for building up strong and efficient 
county school systems is excellent. The fact that their 
public schools of today have been largely developed 
since the Civil War, gave them the further advantage 
of profiting by the mistakes which other states had been 
making in developing their systems. Because of these 
conditions we may confidently expect great progress in 
rural school betterment in the South during the next 
decade. Her people are singularly free from the shackles 
of precedent in school matters which fetter so many of 
the Northern states and make progress so slow. 

In states where the district or the township system now 
holds sway, the county system must develop gradually; 
but its advantages are so apparent that reorganization 
with this end in view is going on all over the country. 
The final solution will likely be a compromise between 
the various types, and the rapid spread of consolidation 
is going to be a big factor in this modifying process. It 
is highly probable that the establishment of strong con- 
solidated elementary and high schools in the open country 
and small villages will invest the local boards of such 
schools with considerable power for their maintenance 
and administration; and the principal functions of the 
county system will be to furnish effective supervision, 
just and equitable distribution of school taxes, and proper 
standards of instruction. In addition to these, its officers 

[ 38 1 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

will act as the chief agents and representatives of the 
state departments of education, carrying out the general 
policies of the state with regard to public schools and 
public education. 

TAXATION AND SCHOOL SUPPORT 

The unadulterated "simple life" is led by savages 
only. Civilized man has many wants, and his individual 
wants soon multiply and become collective a word about 
wants. These can be satisfied most readily taxation 
by collective action through government. In order to 
serve its people best, however, government not only 
tries to secure for them the right to "life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness," but has many other objects 
in view for their general welfare. To accomplish these 
ends equitably and justly, it taxes the wealth of the 
people for public purposes, and this has constituted one 
of the greatest problems of governments from time im- 
memorial. 

In early days, taxes were mostly tributes laid by rulers 
upon their subjects, and since those subjects received 
little or no benefits in return for their taxes, they paid 
just as little as possible. Everybody hated the thought 
of taxes, and the old proverb, "Nothing is certain but 
death and taxes," expressed precisely the feeling of the 
public towards taxes, both in general and in particular. 
It is not strange, therefore, that some people still regard 
taxes as a necessary evil instead of a public benefit, and 
partly because of inborn human selfishness and partly 
because of the difficulty of administering tax-laws justly 
and impartially, the "tax dodger" is still with us. 

Since in a democracy the success of government rests 
upon the intelligence of the governed, the facts about 
public taxation should be set forth clearly and distinctly 

[39] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

and should be better understood by all citizens than they 
are today, even in our most enlightened communities. 
Grumbling about high taxes is heard in every community ; 
and usually the person who complains the loudest knows 
the least about the subject, and yet he makes little or no 
effort to inform himself. 

According to the federal bureau of education, the total 
cost of all education in the United States for the year 
school taxes 1914 was nearl y $800,000,000 ; * and by 
compared with allowing the usual ratio of increase per year, 

other taxes ^ ^^ f()r igi? ^ yery Rkely exceed ^ 

billion-dollar mark. This is a respectable sum, to be sure, 
but only $500,000,000 of the sum is credited to public 
elementary schools and $70,000,000 to public high schools. 
The balance, or $230,000,000, is paid out to private schools, 
technical schools, normal schools, colleges, and univer- 
sities. The sum of $570,000,000 just mentioned, when 
compared with other items of national expenditures, is 
not so startling after all. It is less than three fourths 
of the annual automobile bill for the United States, 2 
less than one half the tobacco bill, just about one fourth 
of the drink bill, and only about four fifths of one per 
cent of the amount that Europe is said to have expended 
on the world war from August, 1914, to August, 1916. 
Facts like these help to dispel the notion that the 
nation is suffering unduly from school taxes. If we should 
spend our annual tobacco bill for education, it would 
allow $50 a year for each of our twenty-four million 

1 See Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 
1916, Vol. I, page 3. 

, 2 In round numbers, this country is estimated to have spent the 
following amounts for the purposes indicated, during 1916 : 

Automobiles and repairs $ 800,000,000 

Tobacco (including cigars and cigarettes) . . $1,200,000,000 
Intoxicating liquors $2,243,000,000 

r 40 1 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

$2,243,000,000 



$ 1,200,000,000 



_ 



$500,000,000 

$70,000,000 

Public High Public Elemen- Automobiles Tobacco, cigars, Intoxicating 
Schools tary Schools and repairs and qgareztes liquors 

School taxes and other taxes 

children of school age and give high school facilities to 
all American boys and girls; and our drink bill would 
give about $450 apiece, annually, to five million young 
men and women in college or university. 

In proportion to our wealth, the school expenditures 
of the nation are still very low. 1 Carefully prepared 
statistics by the Russell Sage Foundation show wealth and 
that for the year 1910 the amount spent for sch ° o1 taxes 
education in the United States varied from 19 cents out 
of each $100 worth of wealth in New Hampshire to 15 
cents per $100 in Oklahoma. The latest report of the 
United States Bureau of Education 2 shows further that 
for the school year 1913-1914, the average daily expense 
per pupil in all the states was 24.6 cents, varying from the 
minimum of 7.56 cents in Mississippi to the maximum 
of 45.76 cents in Arizona. The average annual per capita 

1 Total wealth of the United States for the years 1900, 1904, and 1912, 
respectively, as given by the United States Department of Commerce . 
1900 1904 1912 

$88,517,306,775 $107,104,211,917 $187,739,071,090 

2 J3ee Report of the United States Bureau of Education, 1916, Vol. II. 

[ 41 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Year Amount 

1870 Km 

$ 63,396.666 



1880 
1890 
1900 
1910 
1915 



78,094,687 
140,506,715 



214,964,618 



426,250,434 



605,460, 785 



Total expenditures for public elementary and high schools in the 
United States 

expense per pupil for the entire country, according to 
the same report, was $21.34. This varied from $4.53 
in Mississippi to $49.58 in California. 

The percentage of wealth which the country is now 
spending each year for education is doubtless lower than 
it was a century or even a generation ago ; but so rapid 
has been the increase of our national wealth that in spite 
of the lowered percentage we have nearly trebled our 
public school expenditures in the last ten years. This is 
perhaps without a parallel in the history of the world. 

One sad feature of this progress in better school sup- 
port is that the rural schools are sharing but meagerly 
Rural school the increased blessings of education. About 
taxes three fourths of all the school revenue in the 

United States is raised by local taxation. Taxes are 
levied on both real and personal property of each school 
district, and in the rural districts it is nearly always 
under the direct control of the voters at the annual school 
meeting. It is a notorious fact that a large number of 
the voters attend the annual meeting with the sole object 
in view of keeping down taxes and tax rates; conse- 
quently, the average rural district is trying to run its 
public school on a small fraction of the amount spent for 
the same grade of schools by villages and cities. To get 

[ 42 1 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

any kind of satisfactory support for rural schools, therefore, 
the local tax in most country districts must be doubled. 
Nothing short of an educational revival throughout the 
rural communities will accomplish this; but until the 
money is forthcoming, it is useless to talk about equal 
educational advantages and opportunities for country 
and city children. 

Because we are citizens of states and of the nation 
and not of school districts or minor political units, and 
because the life of each citizen reacts for -.. 4 . 

Education and 

good or evil upon the lives of all other educational 
citizens, it is evident that the training of ^^Isof 
citizens is the business of state and nation state and 
and not of any minor municipality. The natlon 
welfare of the entire commonwealth is affected by the 
educational standards and the measure of financial sup- 
port given to education by the smallest school district 
of the state ; hence it is illogical and dangerous to intrust 
the local school districts with a large degree of authority 
over school finances. It is equally true that the resources 
of the entire state and the concentrated wealth of the 
larger units of taxation should come to the rescue of small, 
weak districts and share with them the burden of taxation. 
This brings us to the important question of the best unit 
for school support. 

Had the American mind been trained to a larger 
view of citizenship and ruminated less among the cob- 
webs of local self-government, jealously I# state sys- 
guarding every minor prerogative of an out- tem of support 
worn past, the real blessings of true democracy would not 
so often have eluded our grasp. Because of this lack of 
vision, the people have clung doggedly to local independ- 
ence of school support and have failed to perceive that 
the state is by far the best unit of taxation for school 

[ 43 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

purposes. Wealth is now so unevenly distributed in 
every state that people must rely upon the state-wide 
use of incomes from state lands, mines, transportation 
systems, industrial corporations, and the like for the 
welfare of all the citizens, in all parts of the state. Con- 
sequently, a generous state tax for school purposes, 
levied on all state property and incomes, should form a 
substantial part of our school tax. By this method, the 
wealthier counties aid the poorer ones, and the city 
dwellers share the burdens with the farmers. It means 
justice for all and special favors for none. California 
has demonstrated the wisdom of this plan so completely 
that good schools are found in the poorest sections of the 
state, thanks to an equitable, state-wide tax for main- 
tenance. Local taxation in that state is limited mostly 
to the upkeep and erection of school buildings. 

Where the people cannot be persuaded to exchange 
a local system of school support for a state-wide 
2. Special system, the district school taxes should at 
state aid least be supplemented with a substantial 

amount of state aid, granted for the purpose of making 
better school conditions possible. This aid should be 
based primarily upon these three factors : (1) the number 
of teachers employed, their grade of certificate, and the 
amount of salary paid ; (2) the length of the school term 
and the attendance of pupils ; (3) the local tax rate and 
property valuation of the district. 

The most equitable distribution of the aid, which at 
the same time will put a premium on local effort to pro- 
vide the best possible and most desirable school con- 
ditions in the district, must emphasize the following: 

(1) The major portion of the aid should be granted for 
the employment of thoroughly trained and adequately 
paid teachers. 

[ 44 ] 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

(2) A definite amount should next be paid to all dis- 
tricts voting a term of eight months or more, except that 
schools with shorter terms may be aided if the local tax 
is unusually high. 

(3) Attendance aid should be a fixed sum per pupil 
per day of actual attendance at school. 

(4) Wherever an extremely high local tax for the 
maintenance of an efficient school is required in addition 
to the state aid just outlined, a further allowance may be 
made for this reason. 

A community definitely assured of liberal annual state 
aid, according to this or a similar scheme, would natu- 
rally make every effort to meet all reasonable require- 
ments of the state for an efficient school. In addition 
to the general state aid distributed and granted on the 
above basis, certain other fixed amounts may well be 
allowed for the encouragement of higher education and 
superior equipment, such as instruction in agriculture, 
manual training, domestic arts, and other industrial 
subjects; consolidation; transportation of pupils; build- 
ing of teachers' houses; and building aid for modern 
schoolhouses of the best type. 

Massachusetts has made it a practice for many years 
to grant such aid for a number of the purposes here 
enumerated; Vermont was the first state to grant aid 
specifically for the transportation of pupils to consolidated 
schools; while Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, 
Nebraska, Iowa, and others have provided special aid 
for a variety of purposes, with gratifying results. The 
most conspicuous example of all is, perhaps, Minnesota, 
which is now giving annually about two and a half million 
dollars for the encouragement of better high schools, 
graded schools, semi-graded schools, and a superior type 
of one-room rural schools. 

[ 45 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Owing to the unequal distribution of wealth in modern 
times, district taxation as the basis of school support is 

3 . District most unfair if not supplemented by sub- 
unit of support stantial county or state levies. Left to local 
initiative and local control, the tax rates in various school 
districts of the same county, because of the different- 
sized districts and the difference in the spirit of the people, 
will range from less than a mill of local school tax to 10 
or 15 mills, even if land values and farming conditions 
are almost identical. If the comparison is carried still 
further and the poorer districts of one county are con- 
trasted with the more favored ones of other counties, 
it is not uncommon to find that the people in one district 
pay from twenty to fifty times as high a rate of school 
tax as those of another district. Such conditions must 
be regarded by all fair-minded people as intolerable and 
indefensible. They form another powerful indictment 
against the small-district system. 

Uniform school taxes by townships and an equal dis- 
tribution of the same to all the township schools is a step 

4. Township towards equitable and fair school support; 
unit of support b^ eV en the township is too small a unit of 
support if the difference in wealth between the several 
townships of the county is pronounced. Where this is 
true, the county should be made the local unit of support, 
especially if a large part of the school tax is raised locally 
and does not come in the form of state tax or state aid. 

There are two principal reasons for the superiority of 
the county system of school support over the district 

5. county and township systems. In the first place, the 
unit of support better distribution of wealth will equalize 
taxes more than either the district or the township unit. 
In the second place, the voting and distribution of school 
taxes in a county system is likely to be placed in the 

[ 46 1 



ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT 

hands of an intelligent school board instead of being left 
to the caprice of the voters at the annual school meeting. 
A more businesslike and intelligent support is therefore 
certain to result; and with reasonable state support in 
addition, excellent schools can then be developed in the 
country as well as in cities and villages. 

Having now examined the prerequisite conditions for 
an up-to-date rural school system, namely, a new kind 
of leadership and supervision and a new system of ad- 
ministration, organization, and support, we shall next 
describe, explain, and define the new rural school itself. 



[47] 



CHAPTER FIVE 

The New Rural School 

IT is evident from the preceding discussion that the 
modern rural school is an unusual and complex in- 
stitution that must be prepared to do new things in a new 
way. To emphasize this we have noted somewhat in 
detail the purpose, scope, necessity, and trend 
of the new of modern education ; the shortcomings of 
school foe old country school system and its super- 

vision, organization, administration, and support. Every 
thoughtful person must realize from this situation that if 
the country school is to fulfill its mission, it must form 
new points of contact with the actual and practical prob- 
lems of life and offer a comprehensive program of commu- 
nity service. Popular ideas of the purpose of education 
have in the last few years undergone a veritable revolution. 
The demand for vocational and industrial training is in- 
sistent and nation wide ; and the world food shortage, so 
suddenly revealed, redoubles the emphasis that must be 
laid upon agricultural training hereafter. Efficiency is 
the watchword of the world, and industrial efficiency is 
the keystone in the arch of general efficiency. The eyes 
of the people should therefore be turned upon its schools 
with a searching inquiry, to see if their training is such as 
to make efficient citizens out of our boys and girls — citi- 
zens who possess both the power and spirit "to make this 
world safe for democracy," as President Wilson has re- 
cently phrased it. Let no one suppose for a moment that 
this noble achievement can be permanently sustained 
except it rest upon the bed rock of a liberty-loving, intelli- 
gent, just, and truly democratic citizenship. In accom- 
plishing this task, the rural school must be prepared to do 
its full share. 
[48] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

While the city schools can call to their aid many social 
and civic institutions and agencies to supplement their 
efforts, such things are entirely lacking or „ 
difficult to establish and maintain in the rural demands 
districts. Accordingly, this additional work madeu P° ni * 
of social redirection and community building becomes the 
natural and logical function of the rural school just as truly 
as the instruction of boys and girls in the fundamentals of 
an elementary education. In the nature of the case, there- 
fore, the school will serve a twofold purpose ; namely, that 
of furnishing a social center for community enterprises and 
activities and that of providing an up-to-date, well-graded 
school of instruction — a school capable of reaching all 
country boys and girls and educating them at home to the 
same degree of efficiency that the city school is training 
its boys and girls. But this does not mean a city graded 
school transplanted into the country. Far from it ! It 
means a school whose atmosphere is distinctly rural, whose 
teachers are rurally minded and in full sympathy and 
harmony with farm life and farm problems, but no less 
refined and cultured than city teachers; it means that 
the work of the school must be comprehensive and thor- 
ough and capable of awakening in the pupils a feeling of 
respect and love for school, home, and community; it 
means a bigger school in the sense of a larger enrollment 
and of serving a larger territory than the old one-room 
school served ; it means the employment of enough teach- 
ers to secure proper division of labor, giving ample time 
for instruction and recitation in every class and affording 
suitable grading and classification for all pupils; and 
finally, it means provision for industrial and agricultural 
training, and high school as well as elementary school 
privileges for all country boys and girls. 

Such a school will rise above the pettiness and narrow- 

[49 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

ness so commonly met in the circumscribed sphere of the 
small school. Its bustle and activity of increased numbers 
and the wider contact with a larger circle of friends and 
neighbors will make for solidarity and social unity of the 
district. Its commanding position and the substantial 
and permanent character of buildings and grounds will 
create a new kind of civic pride; and, as a community 
center, its usefulness will be limited only by the apprecia- 
tion and aspiration of its patrons. This, in a nutshell, is 
the field of the consolidated school and the new rural 
education. 

The term "consolidated school" has been employed 
The consoii- D ^ different writers to denote several classes 
dated school of schools, variously organized and differ- 
ing widely in aim and efficiency, including 
the following : 

(1) Union schools 

(2) Semi-graded and graded consolidated schools 

(3) Complete consolidated schools 

The union school is native to certain Southern states 
like Georgia and the Carolinas, but the type also occurs 
i. Union m many other states. In its simplest form 

schools it results from the closing of one or more small 

district schools and the transfer of the pupils to an ad- 
joining school, with or without transportation. The 
resulting school then employs one or two teachers, accord- 
ing to the number of children enrolled. In the smaller 
union schools it is a common practice to use one of the 
old district buildings, and when two teachers are em- 
ployed to curtain off or divide the schoolroom into two 
parts by means of an improvised partition. When only 
one teacher is employed, the plan is no improvement over 
the former separate district schools, except that it may 
save the taxpayers a little money. It really tends to 

\ 50 1 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

aggravate rather than improve the former unsatisfactory- 
school conditions by the resultant crowding of pupils into 
a small and inadequate building and by the increased 
number of classes. Even where two teachers are em- 
ployed, but the school is housed in a poor type of building, 
there is small advantage over the old system. 

The larger union schools, however, are frequently housed 
in more pretentious buildings and furnish the basis for 
well-graded school systems. When properly organized 
and supervised, they naturally lead to complete consolida- 
tion, and herein lies their great potential value. As a 
system, the union schools are but a makeshift, pointing 
the way to permanent consolidation as their final goal. 

The second type of school arises in those consolidated 
school districts that have not a sufficient number of pupils 
to organize complete consolidated schools. 
They are permanent in character and logical 2 ra J^" n d 
in plan. Most of them have new and sub- graded con- 
stantial central school buildings, to which !°JjJ*^ d 
the pupils are regularly transported as in the 
larger complete consolidated schools. They employ two 
or three and sometimes even four teachers and offer a 
modest beginning in agricultural and other industrial 
subjects, but limit themselves to the work of the eight 
grades below the high school. One group of these schools 
abounds in the thinly settled districts of the Western and 
North Central states, where complete consolidation is not 
yet possible ; and a second group is located in the South, 
where lack of financial resources precludes the better class. 
Occasionally such a school is met with in a thickly settled 
and prosperous farming region where the idea of consolida- 
tion is still new to the people and where local prejudice 
against the innovation is so strong that only two or three 
small districts can be persuaded to petition and vote in 

f 51 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

favor of consolidation. But the aim and ambition of most 
of these schools is to grow into the larger type by future 
addition of territory or by waiting until the districts be- 
come more thickly populated. Wherever present condi- 
tions make the formation of complete consolidated schools 
impossible for several years to come, the smaller schools 
are justified as a temporary compromise. They are doing 
excellent work within their limitations and are overcoming 
many of the deficiencies of the one-room school. 

As used in this book, the term "complete consolidated 

school" means a well-graded central school in a legally 

and completely consolidated school district, 

3. Complete . 

consolidated employing four, five, or more teachers and 
schools offering from two to four years of high school 

work in addition to the work of the eight grades. The 
district must also, at public expense, provide for the regular 
and systematic transportation of all pupils in the district 
who live beyond a reasonable walking distance from the 
school. This is the ideal rural school of the future and should 
be the ultimate goal and ambition of every community. 

In making the transition from district schools to con- 
solidated schools, a few of the new districts have inaugu- 
Partiai con- rated what may be termed "partial consolida- 
soiidation tion." They transport the high school and 

grammar grade pupils to a central building, but retain the 
old one-room schools for the primary children, who thus 
attend school near home. The supposition is that this 
plan favors the little folks by avoiding the hardship of 
transportation, but the assumption is misleading and false. 
Under a properly organized transportation system the 
hardships of travel exist largely in the imagination of the 
people who champion this plan. It is a greater hardship 
for little children to walk to school through snow, slush, 
rain, and mud for a distance of a mile or more than it is 

[52 ] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

for them to ride to school in a comfortable bus for a dis- 
tance of four or five miles. Besides, the children lose all 
the incentive, competition, encouragement, and enthu- 
siasm of large classes at the central school. Add to this 
handicap the fact that the children are doomed to the 
monotonous and deadening routine of small classes, in 
school buildings that lack every convenience and comfort 
of a modern schoolhouse, and the further fact that their 
teachers are deprived of the expert daily supervision of a 
good principal, and the folly of the system at once becomes 
apparent. If a central school and public transportation 
are valuable and essential to bring together the high school 
and grammar grade pupils, it is manifestly unfair to the 
younger children to keep them in schools where neither 
the instruction nor the environment can ever be made 
right. If, on the other hand, such partially consolidated 
districts hope to keep down taxation by relying upon in- 
dividual pupils to furnish their own transportation, waste 
instead of economy will be the result. Individual trans- 
portation is, in the aggregate, the most expensive for the 
community as a whole; and a further disadvantage will 
result to the poorer farmers of the neighborhood who can- 
not afford individual means of transportation for their 
children. Free transportation for all pupils, at public 
expense and under complete control of the school authori- 
ties of the district, is the only sensible and just solution of 
that problem for the consolidated school. 

The familiar unsightly box-car type of school building 
situated on a cramped and neglected plot of ground at the 
crossroads, somewhere near the center of the _ . , .. 

School site 

district, has been tolerated so long by the and piay- 
American farmer that we have practically Kr° unds 
dissociated the idea of beauty from the country school. 
But since childhood is the most impressionable period of 

[53] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

life, and since love for the beautiful in nature as well as in 
art must be inculcated early in order to be lasting, every 
reason tells us that we ought to make the school grounds 
the most beautiful spot in the community. The school 
grounds in a consolidated district should be ample, con- 
taining at least three acres and preferably four or five. 
They should be located on high, well-drained ground, and 
have a wide frontage, and the buildings should be set back 
sufficiently to allow for a well-kept lawn with flower beds, 
appropriate shrubbery, and concrete or graveled walks. 
At the side or back of the building there should be ex- 
tensive playgrounds for both sexes, fitted up with swings, 
seesaws, giant strides, horizontal bars, flying rings, chutes, 
and other apparatus to suit the various ages of children. 
They should also include tennis and basket-ball courts, 
and baseball diamonds for the older pupils, so as to afford 
a great variety of delightful, organized play, which con- 
stitutes the greatest joy of childhood but has been singu- 
larly neglected in the country. The playground equip- 
ment should be substantial but need not be expensive. 
Much of it can be made by the older pupils in connection 
with their industrial work. 

Back of the playgrounds, in the rear of the lot, suitable 
sheds and barns should be erected to accommodate all 
teams and conveyances required for the transportation of 
pupils. These buildings should be neatly painted to har- 
monize with the school building proper and should be 
kept scrupulously clean. A small vegetable garden to 
serve the double purpose of furnishing observation work 
and material for classes in agriculture and nature study 
and of supplying the principal's family and other teachers 
with plenty of fresh vegetables in season, is both an essen- 
tial and convenient feature of the plan. More important, 
however, from the community standpoint is a neat flower 

[54] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

garden under direct care of teachers and pupils and planted 
with suitable annual and perennial flowers and shrubs. 
The scheme should further include a small wood lot and 
orchard for study and experiment in horticultural classes. 
Finally, the entire grounds should be surrounded on three 
sides with at least a double row of evergreens, shade trees, 
and ornamental trees native to the section. Where wind 
breaks are needed, the trees should be massed effectively 
but in pleasing fashion. In no case should a tree be 
planted within fifty feet of the building, because nature's 
most beneficent gift to childhood, the bright sunshine, 
must not be excluded from the building at any point. 

The objections raised to a program of school-ground 
improvement as here outlined are based upon former ex- 
perience in the care of country schoolyards during the 
summer vacations when otherwise fairly well-kept grounds 
have fallen into universal neglect; but in a consolidated 
school district a condition like this ought not to prevail. 
The board should engage its principal by the year and re- 
quire him to give the school plant his thought and attention 
during the summer vacation as well as during the school 
year. If need be, the district might employ the janitor 
on part time during the summer months for the express 
purpose of looking after school grounds and buildings. 
What a splendid place for picnics, community play, neigh- 
borhood gatherings, and meetings of all kinds such a spot 
could easily be made ! The returns, measured in terms 
of a richer and sweeter life, would exceed the added expense 
manifold. 

Some schools have gone a step farther still and have 
added an experimental school farm of from ten to twenty 
or forty acres. But this move is of doubtful Experimental 
value unless the school serves also as a govern- P lots 
ment experiment station. If it does not, the scientific 

[55] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

experiments in agriculture and the practical work of this 
kind that is within the comprehension of the pupils, like 
canning, gardening, corn-club work, pig raising, and similar 
undertakings, should preferably be done on the home farm. 
There they can make use of all the farm tools and home 
facilities without duplication and additional expense, and 
yet be working under the direction and intelligent super- 
vision of the school faculty. Most high schools and con- 
solidated schools that have tried school farming on an 
extensive scale, have found the work difficult to carry out 
and have discovered that the time and money spent in the 
maintenance of the plots was out of all proportion to the 
benefits derived. "Look before you leap " is a good motto 
for all boards of education and superintendents or prin- 
cipals of schools who have visions of extensive school farms 
in connection with the average consolidated school. 

So important is the subject of a proper school building 
for a modern consolidated school that a complete volume 
Size of school m ight be written on it without exhausting the 
building topic, but for a work of this kind a bare outline 

of the essential features must suffice. In the first place, 
a consolidated school building must be planned for per- 
manency and must serve the community for many years 
after its erection. It must therefore be large enough to 
house the school population of the district at the time of 
building and allow for liberal future growth. Almost 
every village and progressive city in the country looks 
back with regret upon the errors committed by its people 
in the building of new schoolhouses. The schoolhouse 
that was supposed to meet the needs of the community 
for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, actually proved too small 
within five years and either required costly additions or 
necessitated a new structure. Not only did this short- 
sighted policy waste thousands of dollars for the tax- 

[56] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

payers, but it also caused needless strife and dissension 
in the community. Too frequently country people have 
assumed that conditions like these would not arise in a 
rural district and that a school building large enough to 
shelter comfortably the school children of the abandoned 
one-room schools would be sufficient for the consolidated 
school. School officers in charge of consolidated schools, 
however, have found to their sorrow that in the past, 
nearly one half of the new school buildings proved inade- 
quate in size within three or four years. The experience 
should be a warning to all; and a community is short- 
sighted indeed if it will not heed the lesson which others 
have so dearly paid for. A consolidated school building 
should be of sufficient capacity to accommodate from fifty 
to a hundred per cent more pupils than were formerly 
enrolled in the abandoned schools. At first sight this 
seems to be an abnormally large allowance, but the power 
of attracting and holding the older pupils of the community 
and the greater floor space required for high school and 
industrial work as compared with ordinary grade work, is 
nearly always underestimated. The probability of the 
district's enlargement must also be taken into account, 
especially if adjacent farms outside the district are within 
easy driving distance of the new school. Finally, the 
population of most rural districts is bound to increase 
materially within the next ten or twenty years. 

That the school building should be constructed of stone, 
brick, or other durable material, goes without saying. 
Not only is it more economical in the long run, 
but rural people have a right to expect and and character 
demand that these larger school buildings ofbuadin g s 
shall be attractive, safe, durable, sanitary, and in keeping 
with the highest community ideals. They represent a 
large financial investment and a high degree of neighbor- 

[ 57 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

hood cooperation, the results of which should be com- 
mensurate with the efforts put forth. In this community 
home the children will spend a large share of their time, 
and the impressions which they receive here will accom- 
pany them through life. The very building itself should, 
therefore, be an object of inspiration and pleasant memo- 
ries ; and while the pupils may forget many a lesson taught 
them within its walls, they should never forget the school 
and its environment. Alas, the pictures that country 
children have been compelled to carry away from thou- 
sands of miserable rural schoolhouses all over the country ! 
Have we not in our thoughtlessness shamefully robbed 
our boys and girls of the aesthetic element in their sensitive 
natures by such surroundings? If so, shall we continue 
to rob them indefinitely ? 

In the open country, land is too cheap to economize on 
ground space when erecting a new schoolhouse. The 
building should cover a sufficient area to allow 
for the location of all classrooms and recitation 
rooms above ground. If a basement is provided at all, its 
use should be restricted to furnace and fuel rooms, janitor's 
workshop, and storage room. It may, however, in addi- 
tion contain the lavatories and a combined gymnasium 
and auditorium, if the total cost of the building can be 
reduced by such an arrangement; otherwise these also 
should be built above ground. Under no circumstances 
should a basement or sub-basement contain a classroom 
or a recitation room, because basement rooms are inju- 
rious to the health of children. Even the location of 
a manual-training shop or a domestic-science room in a 
school basement is unwise and open to serious objections. 
All school basements should extend but a few feet into the 
ground and from six to ten feet above the ground level, in 
order to give plenty of light and ventilation. 

[ 58] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

By means of skylights for the central portion of the 
building and unilateral side light for the classrooms and 
recitation rooms surrounding this central The ne-story 
part, unique and excellent one-story school building 
buildings can be erected that will accommodate from three 
hundred to a thousand pupils. Such buildings afford a 
maximum of safety in case of fire or panic and eliminate 
stairways entirely. They avoid the heavy reinforced con- 
struction of walls and of the floors of the second story, and 
make it possible to raise the ceiling of the central audi- 
torium or gymnasium without disturbing a floor level 
above. While this type of building is comparatively re- 
cent in school architecture and construction, it merits the 
careful consideration of any building committee. Its 
future looks bright. 

In external appearance the two-story building has some 
advantages over the one-story type. It also lends itself 
nicely to a convenient separation of the The two-story 
smaller children from the larger ones, because building 
of the two floors of the building. Most of the larger village 
and open-country graded and high schools are of this type ; 
and no country school building should ever have more 
than two stories above the basement. There may be 
some excuse for erecting schoolhouses of three or more 
stories in congested city districts where building lots are 
at a premium, but there is no excuse for them in the open 
country. 

No matter what kind or size of school building a district 
may be planning to build, there is wisdom in making it 
conform to what is known as "the unit plan The unit plan 
of construction." This takes into account of bmiding 
both the present and future needs of the district, requires 
a symmetrical design for the complete building, and allows 
for additions or enlargements at a minimum cost without 

[ 59 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

disturbing the part originally constructed. The architect 
and board must, from the beginning, keep in mind the 
complete building and adopt no plan which would result 
in waste spaces or dark rooms and hallways if the building 
should need to be enlarged in the future. They must also 
plan the front of the building with great care, to pre- 
serve the harmony and unity of the entire structure. 
Schoolhouse designing is both an art and a serious business 
undertaking, and none but specialists should be intrusted 
with the planning of a school building. Such men need 
to have expert knowledge of lighting, ventilation, water 
supply, arrangement of rooms, and scores of details and 
special features that are essential to the success of the 
building and that insure the maximum of efficiency at a 
minimum of cost. An architect may even be a master in 
the designing of city high schools and graded schools and 
yet fail miserably in planning a consolidated rural school 
building requiring certain features which are quite different 
from those of the other type. 

Every consolidated school building designed to accom- 
modate more than one hundred pupils should make definite 

arrangements for the following: (1) a large 
of P consoiidated auditorium with suitable stage and provision 
school for a good school lantern; (2) a lunchroom 

adjacent to the domestic science department ; 
(3) a gymnasium with adjoining shower baths and lava- 
tories for both sexes; (4) a combined science and agri- 
cultural laboratory; and (5) a well-equipped manual- 
training room. It is usually possible and advisable to 
have one large room serve the dual purpose of gymnasium 
and auditorium, and this should be freely used for all kinds 
of school and community gatherings and entertainments. 
If the domestic-science department is located next to the 
auditorium, the latter may also serve as the lunchroom of 
[60] 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

the school during the noon hour; otherwise, a separate 
lunchroom ought to be provided. In case the gymnasium 
is not used as an auditorium, the high school study room 
may be combined with adjacent classrooms by means of 
folding partitions, so that practically the entire second 
floor may be converted into one large auditorium for as- 
sembly purposes, while the separate rooms permit of being 
used daily for regular class work. Too much emphasis 
cannot be laid upon this all-important community-center 
auditorium. Its use will be discussed more fully in a later 
chapter. 

At least from November until April each school year, 
hot lunches for all pupils living at a distance from the 
schoolhouse should be prepared and served by the do- 
mestic-science department at the noon hour. This is not 
only conducive to the health and enjoyment of the chil- 
dren, but it furnishes an opportunity for practical lessons 
in the cooking of simple, palatable, and properly prepared 
dishes of various kinds, the cost of which is but a few cents 
per child each day. Even penny-a-day lunches have been 
found feasible and sufficient. This community meal af- 
fords an excellent opportunity for teachers and pupils to 
observe and teach correct table manners and to practice 
the common courtesies of life and social intercourse. 

The agricultural department and laboratory should be 
opened as freely to the adult farmers for consultation as 
for class instruction during school hours ; and in the matter 
of seed corn testing, feeding rations, germination and 
purity tests of grass seeds and grains, soil analysis, graft- 
ing and care of fruit trees, and the like, the work should 
personify and supplement the actual work on the neigh- 
borhood farms. The same may be said with equal force 
of the manual- training work of the boys and the domestic- 
science work of the girls. Should the consolidated school 

[61] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

fail to make its industrial work for both sexes distinctly 
practical and directly applicable to actual farm conditions, 
it would fail in one of the fundamental purposes for which 
it was created. 

The best authorities on schoolroom lighting recommend 
that for all classrooms not exceeding twenty-three feet in 
width the light should be unilateral, and the 
portant fea- glass area of the windows in each room should 
tares of the b e a ^ least one fifth of the floor space. Trans- 
lucent shades are the most serviceable in con- 
trolling the direct glare of the sun; and dark, opaque 
shades should not be used at all. Adjustable shades are 
excellent; but if the stationary type is used, the shades 
should be fastened on double rollers at the middle of the 
window, one rolling downward and the other upward. A 
pleasing color scheme of light tints for the walls and ceiling, 
on a smoothly plastered surface, adds cheerfulness and 
disciplinary value to the room ; and a little direct sunlight 
for the schoolroom is a great disinfectant. As to direc- 
tion, the consensus of opinions now seems to be that the 
east, west, south, and north lights should be preferred in 
the order named. When we stop to reflect that numerous 
investigations have shown that about one fourth of the 
school children in country or city schools have defective 
eyesight, the question of proper schoolroom lighting as- 
sumes extremely significant importance. The placing of 
blackboards between windows is a pernicious practice, as 
it causes a heavy strain to be placed upon the eyes of pupils 
who try to focus them on the wall of the room while facing 
the irritating, direct light from the windows. 

Fan ventilation by means of a gas engine or electric 

motor is highly desirable and within the reach of every 

large consolidated school. It is much better than any 

gravity system, and the cost of operation is slight com- 

f 62 1 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

pared with its benefits. Nor should we forget that the 
proper humidity of the air is just as important as its tem- 
perature. From sixty-five to seventy degrees Fahrenheit 
is commonly accepted as the right temperature of the 
schoolroom ; and this, with about fifty per cent humidity 
and a supply of thirty cubic feet of fresh outdoor air per 
minute per child, meets with the approval of most au- 
thorities on schoolroom ventilation. Rotation of air and 
rebrea thing of foul air should not be permitted. 

The best method of furnishing an ample supply of good 
water where a free-flowing spring is not available, is to 
pump it from a deep driven or bored well into Water suppIy 
a pressure tank by means of a small engine and toilets 
and from there to force it to all parts of the building. 
This makes possible the sanitary bubbling fountains on 
all floors, as well as flush toilets, shower baths, and every 
other convenience of a modern water system. By con- 
necting the toilets with a properly constructed septic tank, 
costing but a few hundred dollars, the disgraceful outdoor 
toilets of the country school are completely eliminated. 
This matter of the right kind of toilets and their proper 
supervision is of the utmost importance, but has usually 
been criminally neglected. We have supposed that young 
girls of seventeen or eighteen years, who are but children 
themselves and often woefully ignorant of the elementary 
principles of child life, could be safely intrusted with the 
delicate task of sex supervision and moral guidance of a 
promiscuous flock of boys and girls in the critical period 
of sex development. All the world knows, however, that 
even mature and thoughtful parents are liable to make a 
sad muddle of their own children's training at this time of 
life, when sympathetic insight into their problems and wise 
counsel are of supreme importance. Now with young 
and inexperienced teachers, a false modesty on the one 

[63] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

hand or utter lack of understanding on the other has caused 
them to tolerate conditions in the outbuildings of rural 
schools that should make civilized communities blush with 
shame. To remedy this crying evil, the boys' toilet room 
demands the intelligent attention of the principal or capa- 
ble janitor at each recess period, and the girls' toilets to be 
similarly supervised by one of the women teachers. Some 
system should furthermore be devised which will prevent 
too much mingling of the smaller and larger children in 
these places. If the consolidated school should bring to 
country children no other blessing than the comfort and 
security of clean, warm, supervised, indoor toilets, it would 
be worth every cent of additional tax which the farmers 
will be obliged to pay for its support. The immorality, 
filth, and menace to public health which have been lurking 
in the miserable toilet facilities of the average rural school, 
beggar all description. 

A pleasant library room with appropriate shelves, book 
cases, magazine racks, and reading tables, filled with a well- 
chosen assortment of books and periodicals, 
is a powerful adjunct to the school. In addi- 
tion to a full supply of the latest and best supplementary 
reading and reference works for every class and department 
of the school, it should contain enough wholesome and in- 
structive general literature for young and old of the entire 
district. If such a library has not the power to create and 
foster the reading habit among the patrons of the school, 
there is something wrong with the library or with its ad- 
ministration. Country people need more and better read- 
ing than they have enjoyed in the past, and the school 
library can easily make this accessible. The new rural 
school must do a real service in this field. 

The term "minor features" is perhaps a misnomer for 
some of the less conspicuous but nevertheless essential 

[ 64 1 



THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL 

features of a good school building. Among these may be 
classed the following : a principal's office, a teachers' rest 
room, wardrobes for the assembly room and 
each grade room, well-lighted halls, suitable 
pictures and decorations, and a flag pole from which the 
flag should be floating, not as a legal requirement of the 
state, but as a sign of the patriotic spirit and teaching 
within. These, and others, are necessary and vital ele- 
ments of the complex school plant which we have called 
the complete consolidated school. 

The gross negligence on the part of teachers and janitors 
so frequently seen in the care of school buildings and school 
property, and the vandalism practiced by the 
older pupils in the handling of books and ap- ing and 
paratus, is a serious indictment of school e( i m P ment 
people as public servants; and the wrong committed is 
by no means confined to the rural schools alone. We 
teachers need a new conception of our duty in this matter 
and ought to feel the same responsibility for the custody 
of public property that the average man feels as custodian 
of his private property. Janitors put in charge of a school 
building should certainly be held responsible for the follow- 
ing : (1) having the building comfortably heated before 
the arrival of the pupils in the morning and maintaining 
an even temperature throughout the day; (2) sweeping 
all halls and classrooms daily and dusting the furniture 
after each sweeping ; (3) cleaning erasers and blackboards 
every day ; (4) scrubbing the floors and washing the wood- 
work once a month, and oftener if need be ; (5) taking care 
of all apparatus and supplies; (6) making minor repairs 
on buildings and furniture promptly; (7) keeping wash 
bowls, fountains, bathrooms, and toilets scrupulously 
clean ; and (8) looking after the grounds and keeping the 
walks clean both summer and winter. Failure of the jani- 

[ 65 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

tor to perform promptly and efficiently these and other 
duties that may be delegated to him, must be charged 
primarily against the principal, upon whom must rest the 
supervision of janitors, teachers, and pupils alike. To 
cooperate with the principal, each teacher must assume 
full responsibility for the care of books, furniture, and ap- 
paratus and the appearance of her own room. She should 
also help in the general care and oversight of the school 
plant when called upon or when opportunity presents itself. 
Finally, each pupil must be taught to respect and preserve 
all school property and be willing to repair any injury re- 
sulting from accident, carelessness, or willful act. 

In the rural school, the responsibility for all this must 
naturally be borne by the teacher, in addition to the work 
of instruction and schoolroom management. It is small 
wonder that under the circumstances the young teachers 
especially have failed quite frequently in the performance 
of these manifold duties. In justice to them it should be 
said that usually the spirit was willing but the flesh weak. 

The magnitude of the school plant in the new rural school 
as outlined in this chapter, and the cost of maintenance 
in addition to the cost of construction and equipment, will 
no doubt seem formidable to many country people. The 
important question in their mind, therefore, will be, Can 
all this be provided in a rural district without an unwar- 
ranted increase in taxation ? This is a fair and legitimate 
question, and a detailed answer will be given later; but 
enough reliable information from hundreds of consolidated 
schools is now available to show that the increase in school 
taxes in first-class consolidations as here described has been 
much less than most people anticipated. There is ample 
proof today that such schools are possible in practically 
every progressive and prosperous rural community having 
the necessary territory and a fairly good system of roads. 

[66] 



CHAPTER SIX 

The Curriculum of the School 

fTlHE evolution of the human race, viewed in toto, is a 
-■- remarkable spectacle. From the cave man's domi- 
cile to the fifty-sixth story of a modern metropolitan 
skyscraper is a stretch of the imagination that severely 
tests the powers of many a mind, and yet SociaI progreS s 
every day adds to the wonder of the achieve- and changing 
ment. As a people, we are a long way still atrnVin^ 
from the summit of civilization's mountain, education 
and the procession is steadily winding up its slopes, 
leaving the stragglers to fall by the wayside. 

Individuals who are slow to discern this evolution of 
the race need to be constantly reminded of the never 
ceasing struggle of man for nobler achievements in order 
to bring their lives into harmony with humanity's aims 
and ambitions and to fit their steps to the march of the 
ages lest they obstruct or impede its progress by their 
lack of understanding or obstinate resistance. Past 
changes have been many and profound, but if modern 
life exhibits one chief characteristic, it is the tendency 
toward whirlwind changes in human relationship and the 
scramble of society to adjust itself to the new conditions. 

Figuratively speaking, the human family is in a ferment. 
Mind and body are feverishly active, not passive ; living, 
not dead. We have not only learned to adjust ourselves 
passively to a natural environment, but have learned to 
transcend and re-create that environment to serve our 
growing needs and desires. Naturally, in such an ever 
changing social order which is constantly modifying its 
ideals of moral and ethical life, there can be no stable 
formula for popular education. At best we can merely lay 
down broad principles and rules by which to evaluate 

[ 67 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

our educational creeds and practices. On what, then, 
shall they be based ? 

The old Spartan philosophy that the individual existed 

solely for the benefit of the state has been discarded, and 

with it must vanish the rule of kings and 

Existing t ° 

educational potentates. On the opposite theory, that 
creeds ^ s t a t e ex i s t s for the benefit of the individ- 

ual, rest the claims of republics and democracies. Hence, 
if popular education in our country is to be justified at all, 
we must justify it on this theory. Nevertheless, both 
these conceptions of the function of the state demand 
trained and efficient individuals, but for diametrically 
opposite purposes. In the one case the individual's 
well-being counts for naught except to glorify the state 
and its leaders, while in the other the state is made effi- 
cient for the express purpose of promoting the well-being 
of all its citizens. In addition, we must not forget that 
man is by nature a gregarious animal, a social being, 
whose happiness depends upon the well-being and happi- 
ness of the state and society. Therefore, an intimate 
interrelation exists between the individual and the state, 
and neither can prosper without the other. Conse- 
quently, the best possible education is that which will 
give the individual the greatest amount of freedom con- 
sistent with the highest good and welfare of society. On 
this principle we may judge the value of some of the 
modern conceptions of education as formulated by emi- 
nent thinkers. 

1. There are many who still hold the old Greek idea of 
education — the harmonious development of all the powers 
and capabilities of the individual. Followed to its logical 
conclusion, it centers completely in the individual. It is 
narrow, and leaves out of consideration the second factor, 
society. An individual so trained, but unwilling to use 

[68] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

his powers for the welfare of society, is a poor asset to 
the state. 

2. We have those who think of education primarily 
as culture. The main fault with this school of educators 
has been the reliance on facts from a dead past. Instead 
of turning their eyes to the future, they fix them on the 
past and fill the mind with data that have little or no 
bearing on the course ahead, where our real interests lie. 
The lessons of our yesterdays are valueless except for 
use and guidance in our tomorrows. "Knowledge for 
its own sake" may be good ballast but is poor cargo. 

3. Education has also been conceived as habit formation, 
and the disciples of this idea lay great stress upon "learn- 
ing to do by doing." The results of this training are, in 
the main, commendable. Such people look to the future 
instead of the past and emphasize utility. But the sys- 
tem is in danger of producing automatons rather than 
rational beings. In our doing we must not forget our 
thinking. Reason is greater than habit. 

4. Another class of educators has rallied around the 
cry, Education for social efficiency. They value the in- 
dividual only as a member of society, and whatever he 
does in life that does not contribute directly to the social 
welfare is misdirected or useless. While no one can deny 
the strength of their position so far as the state and society 
are concerned, the system has a tendency to repress the 
individual in his personal, idealistic, and aesthetic growth 
and development. 

5. Perhaps the best conception of modern education 
and its aims that has yet been expressed is the adjustment 
of the individual to his environment. It emphasizes the 
two principal phases of the problem — the individual 
who is to be educated, and the environment in which he 
is to live. This environment includes the physical, the 

[ 69 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

moral, and the social, and its ever changing character 
has already been pointed out. If, then, education is 
conceived to be the adjustment to such an environment, 
we must naturally expect a constant change in education 
also, in order that it may conform to new conditions in 
the world about us and to new standards in life. The 
point of divergence between urban and rural education 
lies here. Where the one has been dynamic and has 
steadily adapted itself to an altered environment, the 
other has been static and traditional. The new rural 
school must, therefore, have the new educational aim — 
that of adjusting our boys and girls to their present 
environment and of developing them into the highest 
type of manhood and womanhood, physically, mentally, 
and morally. This demands some radical reforms and 
readjustments of present practices. 

A reconstructed curriculum for the rural schools is one 
of the first demands. While the subjects taught in the 
Subject country school will not, and should not, differ 

matter of greatly from those taught in the city school, 

they must be redirected and made more 
distinctly applicable to farm life. Much of the content 
of the old course that is useless or of little moment may be 
eliminated entirely ; and in other studies the emphasis 
must be shifted to the vital and practical interests of every- 
day life. The following subjects are entitled to thoughtful 
consideration in planning a course of study for country 
schools : reading, language and literature, arithmetic, 
history and citizenship, geography, music, drawing, 
writing, spelling, sanitation and hygiene, and industrial 
work. Included in the last-named subject should be 
primary handwork, agriculture, manual training, sewing, 
cooking, and home management. Only brief comments 
can be given on each subject enumerated, but the list 

[ 70 1 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

itself indicates how different this program is bound to 
be from the traditional one-room school curriculum. 

That even the one-teacher schools have made attempts 
in the last few years to incorporate some, or all, of the 
above-mentioned subjects in their course of study is true, 
and in some cases they have succeeded admirably under 
the disheartening conditions commonly found; but in 
spite of formal legislation, or urgent pleas from county 
and district superintendents to make room for the new 
studies, the one-teacher school finds itself helpless to cope 
with the situation, no matter how well prepared the 
teacher may be. All country teachers should, however, 
clearly understand the problem which faces the rural 
school. Some adjustment along the new lines is possible 
in every school, and rural teachers should make such 
modest beginnings in industrial work as their limited 
time and meager facilities will permit. 

To introduce a host of new subjects into the school 
curriculum and at the same time guard the teacher and 
pupils against overcrowding because of the ^. 

. , . , , , „ Tune saving 

expansion and enrichment ol the course of and correlation 
study, which now contains twice or three ofsub i ects 
times the amount of subject matter formerly taught, 
we must carefully conserve the time of both teacher and 
pupils and employ school hours to the best possible 
advantage. This can be accomplished in two ways; 
first, by purging the several subjects of useless, imprac- 
tical, and dead matter on which many weary hours were 
wasted under the old regime ; and second, by correlation 
of subjects that have many things in common and dovetail 
into each other, so to speak. This idea is made clear by 
the alterations suggested for the various subjects. 

Up to the middle of the second year of the child's school 
life, his number work should be confined to the getting and 

[71 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

fixing of simple number conceptions, learning to count, and 

the reading and writing of numbers. If the fundamental 

operations in addition, subtraction, multipli- 

Arithmetic .. 1 j- • • • 11 i j? 

cation, and division in whole numbers, trac- 
tions, and decimals are then thoroughly drilled upon in the 
next few years, "the mechanics in arithmetic" will need 
little attention thereafter except for brief and rapid reviews. 
This leaves the pupil free to center his future attention 
upon the logical analysis of practical problems likely to 
come within his business career of later life. By a wise 
choice of textbooks, containing the desired material, 
or by the teacher's own ingenuity and ability to construct 
problems in farm accounting, poultry raising, buying and 
selling of stock, crop production, soil surveys, household 
management, modern business practices in the lending 
of money and similar enterprises, enough arithmetic can 
be learned by the average child in half or two thirds 
of the time that was formerly allotted to arithmetic in 
the country schools. What is more, such work correlates 
expressly with the pupil's other studies and is shorn of 
the "useless lumber" crowded into the old-time arith- 
metics. It should also be plain that the problem material 
in arithmetic for country children will differ greatly from 
that which is suitable for city children, and many text- 
books may have to be entirely rewritten to meet the new 
demand. 

Formal grammar, when presented to immature minds, 
is of little value in the learning of a language, and its 
hard and dry logic and the discouraging mass 



of rules and classifications are exceedingly 
depressing. It should either be entirely eliminated from 
the curriculum of the elementary rural school or pre- 
sented in greatly simplified form during the eighth grade 
only. The proper substitute for grammar is live language 

[ 72] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

lessons, dealing with familiar objects, scenes, stories, and 
experiences within the pupil's comprehension and knowl- 
edge. So important is drill in language or composition, 
both written and oral, to students of all grades that some 
form of it, suited to the age and attainment of the pupil, 
should run through every department of the public 
school from kindergarten to college. 

In kindling the flame of patriotism and in filling the 
minds and hearts of our young citizens with pride and 
love for country and for the blessings of 
liberty in a free land, the subject of history ls ° ry 
stands supreme. But it took the stern realities and the 
fearful calamities of a destructive world war, into which 
we were drawn reluctantly, to teach the American people 
how far they had fallen short in welding their citizens 
into one homogeneous nation. Had our school teachers 
been as diligent to extol the deeds of our heroic men and 
women and inspire our youth with a true regard for the 
lofty ideals of American liberty and equality as the 
schoolmasters of our efficient adversaries, the Germans, 
have been in glorifying the past history and achievements 
of Germany and her rulers, the unfaltering loyalty of 
every citizen would never have been questioned when we 
entered the great conflict. Our signal failure to place full 
value upon the brilliant record of America's fight for free- 
dom and democracy in our teaching of history and citi- 
zenship is now apparent to all. Not a moment should be 
lost in rectifying this grave error, and there are hopeful 
signs that we are fully awake to the situation. Time and 
occasion were never more propitious for a rebirth of 
national life and a new Americanism whose spirit shall 
not abate until every vestige of sectionalism and alien 
thought is wiped out forever. There is need of cleansing 
"the American melting pot" to make us an undivided 

[73] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

and indivisible nation, and in this task the school teachers 
must be the chief actors. 

The teaching of history should, therefore, receive 
more thoughtful consideration. By means of a carefully 
planned course, beginning with fascinating stories of our 
great men and women in the days of exploration, coloni- 
zation, struggle for independence, and nation building — 
told to the primary children in forceful but simple lan- 
guage — we can lead them on to more extensive biographies 
of national heroes which all children love to hear and 
read. This forms an ideal background for later historical 
reading and study. It develops in the young boy or girl 
a sense of pride and sympathetic interest in those who 
have made our country what it is and gives them the 
keynote to patriotism and citizenship. Great care must 
be taken, however, that these larger aims of history shall 
not be smothered with tiresome details and chronological 
sequence of historical events. Even in the formal study 
of history in the seventh and eighth grades, real, vital 
history must not be confused with the learning of long 
lists of dates, the tracing of military campaigns, and the 
making of skeleton outlines to show the events of presi- 
dential administrations. The meat of the subject is the 
big, stirring events dealing with the lives, deeds, and 
aspirations of individuals who, in turn, mold the life of 
the nation. To them we must look for the real mile- 
stones of progress. When studied in this light, and when 
seen in its true relationship to the great historical move- 
ments of Europe and the rest of the world, American 
history becomes at once delightful and illuminating and 
a powerful factor in the character formation of the student. 

The gist of geography is man in all the complex re- 
lationship to his home — the great, wide world. Every 
factor, therefore, that has an important bearing on 

[ 74] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

the modification of his home and the life within it, has 
a place in the study of geography ; but the magnitude of 
the subject has led to no end of abuse in 
weighing it down with a mass of trivial and 
useless information. No subject offers a greater oppor- 
tunity for effective correlation of school work on the one 
hand, and for the saving of time by the elimination of 
memoriter, mental gymnastics on the other. When led 
by a skillful teacher from the known of local geography 
to the unknown of state, national, and world relationship 
of people, the child will pursue the subject with keen 
delight and fascination; but in the hands of a plodding 
teacher, grinding away on the old "book geography," 
the study becomes the most useless, aimless, and monoto- 
nous of the curriculum. Nowhere else is the discrimina- 
tion, alertness, and resourcefulness of the intermediate 
or grammar grade teacher more fruitful of results than in 
the teaching of geography. 

The country is the most appropriate place for field work in 
geography because an abundance of material lies right out- 
side the door of the rural school, but the timidity of teachers 
and the fear of neighborhood criticism for inaugurating 
something new has kept many a good teacher and bright 
geography class strictly within the four walls of the school- 
room when a little excursion into the open would have re- 
vealed a mine of first-hand information that no textbook 
can adequately convey to the mind of the child. Here is 
another wonderful opportunity for the new rural school. 
The intimate interrelation existing between geography 
and such subjects as agriculture, history, language, and 
the natural sciences is too obvious for discussion. 

During the first three years of school life reading de- 
serves to occupy the place of preeminence in the curric- 
ulum. Until children have acquired the ability to read 

[75] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

rapidly and well, proficiency in history, geography, lan- 
guage, problem solving in arithmetic, and many other lines 
of study is out of the question. It should 
also be clearly understood that good reading 
means not only thought getting from the printed page, 
but power and insight to weigh the values of good reading 
material. It means thoughtful discrimination between 
good books and poor ones, and the final goal must be the 
acquisition of a taste for good reading and the fixing of 
the reading habit for life. Perhaps more failures in the 
academic work of elementary and high school pupils can 
be justly attributed to poor preparation in reading than 
to any other single cause. Lack of foundation in phonics, 
not enough drill in oral reading and expression in the 
primary grades, and little or no dictionary work in the 
intermediate grades are the three chief causes of poor 
reading. 

Work in phonics is essential to make self-reliant readers. 
It furnishes the child with a key that unlocks the secret 
to the pronunciation of a host of new words. Since more 
than four fifths of the words in the English language are 
phonetic, no primary teacher can afford to slight the sub- 
ject, and children should have daily drills in phonics 
soon after they enter school. By following up the phonic 
drills in the primary grades with thorough dictionary 
training in the intermediate grades, two formidable 
stumbling blocks to good reading are removed. The 
third problem is how to get more time for oral class read- 
ing and expression. It is not uncommon to find reading 
classes in rural schools that have but one or two minutes 
daily per pupil devoted to oral reading. This means that 
a pupil has actual practice in oral reading for about three 
to six hours in a school term of eight months. How 
absurd to think that any teacher could make proficient 

[ 76 1 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

readers out of pupils under such conditions ! Now add 
to this handicap a dearth of reading books, as a result of 
which a single book is made to serve a pupil for the entire 
school year and the selections are read and re-read and 
the book is reviewed and re-reviewed until every page is 
worn threadbare and the interest in every story is buried 
beyond all hope of resurrection, and you have a com- 
bination for stultifying the young mind which can hardly 
be surpassed. 

Fortunately, this type of country school is now rare 
in the progressive districts, but there are still thousands 
of rural districts where this very thing is going on because 
penny-wise and pound-foolish school boards are trying 
to keep down taxes by curtailing the supply of necessary 
textbooks. A good supply of supplementary readers 
should be found in every school. With ample time de- 
voted to reading in a well-graded school, a bright class 
can and should read from half a dozen to a dozen interest- 
ing and instructive books each year. Exceptional teachers 
have been known to cover as many as twenty-five or thirty 
supplementary readers a year with a bright class. 

About the only redeeming feature of the old-fashioned 
textbook physiology was its crusade against the use of 
intoxicating liquor. In every other respect 

, , iii- i Health lessons 

its contents were dry and deadening and 
mostly beyond the comprehension of grade children. 
In the modern form of personal and public hygiene, how- 
ever, it has much practical value. The proper function 
of the study of hygiene and sanitation in the elementary 
school is to teach the basic facts of schoolroom ventila- 
tion ; danger of contamination to water or milk supply ; or- 
dinary diseases of eyes, ears, nose, throat, and lungs ; child- 
hood afflictions like adenoids, diseased tonsils, measles, 
and mumps ; bathing and personal cleanliness ; and simi- 

[77] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Iar topics. All formal work in physiology or anatomy 
should be deferred until the pupil reaches the high school, 
where the subject may be correlated with other natural 
sciences. 

According to the late E. T. Fairchild, president of the 
Agricultural College of New Hampshire, less than twenty- 
five per cent of the rural school children are 
completing the work of the grades. If this 
be true, the duty of teaching at least the rudiments of 
civil government in the grades of the rural school becomes 
imperative. The appalling ignorance concerning the 
operation of our government which is displayed by thou- 
sands of male voters, not only in marking the ballot on 
election day but in the discussion of the simplest political 
and economic issues, is proof that we must continue to 
teach civil government in the grades until a larger per- 
centage of our pupils can be instructed in this subject 
in the high school. Grammar grade pupils cannot hope 
to study civil government in detail because of the phil- 
osophic and difficult nature of the subject; but they 
can get a grasp of the general functions of the national 
government in connection with their study of history 
and may also learn enough of the workings of county, 
municipal, and state government to have some elementary 
conception of the duties of a good citizen toward state and 
nation. No one should be allowed to graduate from a 
high school who has not taken a substantial course in 
civics, whether it be given with senior American history 
or separately. The quality of our citizenship will not 
be greatly improved until every child gets at least a fair 
insight into the working, aim, and object of our govern- 
ment ; and a democracy cannot be made socially or eco- 
nomically efficient until it is loyally supported by an in- 
telligent and trained citizenship. 
[78] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

In spite of the common use of the typewriter today, 
the person who writes a neat, legible, flowing hand has a 
great advantage in securing and retaining a 

, ••• .1 i • j Penmanship 

business position over the one who is de- 
ficient in penmanship. If the public knew how many 
men and women are daily weighed in the balance of the 
commercial world by the appearance of a letter of appli- 
cation, the value of good handwriting would be greatly 
enhanced in their estimation. But good handwriting 
is a social as well as a business asset, and therefore the 
subject of penmanship will continue to remain an im- 
portant one in the elementary course of study. A 
daily writing lesson of not less than fifteen minutes, under 
the intelligent direction of the teacher, ought to be the 
minimum essential in penmanship for all grades. Where 
time permits, thirty or forty minutes a day should be 
devoted to the subject. 

The recent revival in spelling, as evidenced by the 
large number of local and state-wide contests, is com- 
mendable. The further fact that oral and 
written work have received equal recognition pe mg 
in most of these contests proves that we have learned to 
value both phases of the subject. To arouse interest 
in oral spelling is comparatively easy, and this accounts 
in a measure for the popularity of the old-time "spelling 
bees"; but in everyday life, written spelling is of far 
greater service than oral. However, children should 
use both the oral and the written method of studying 
spelling, not only to add variety and interest to the work, 
but because some children are naturally eye-minded 
while others are ear-minded. The former get their spell- 
ing lessons more easily by seeing the words in the written 
or printed form, while the latter fix them in their minds 
by listening to them as they are being spelled aloud. 

[ 79 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Some years ago the educational pendulum swung away 
from the subject of spelling and a few extremists advocated 
the discarding of all spelling books and of making the 
teaching of spelling incidental to the rest of the school 
work. The folly of this idea has now been sufficiently 
demonstrated, and it is generally conceded that regular 
daily lessons in spelling from good textbooks is the proper 
course to pursue. Special teaching devices in the form 
of games and contests are exceedingly helpful in breaking 
the monotony of the study and adding zest and interest. 

The subjects of music, drawing, literature, and art 

are grouped here because all of them appeal to the aesthetic 

nature of children. Their principal mission 

Music, draw- ... » ■, . | 

ing, literature, is inspiration, appreciation or things moral 
and art an( j spiritual, the enjoyment of life's beauty, 

and the expression of the most sacred feelings and emo- 
tions of the soul. The pity is that we have so long been 
compelled to pass them by lightly in the country school 
because of existing conditions. The one-room school 
could offer little in this line for lack of time, lack of qual- 
ified instructors, and other reasons; but in the consoli- 
dated school, with some chance for specialization, they 
will play a large part in the education of every child. 
Their influence on adult as well as child life can hardly 
be overestimated. Country homes and the country com- 
munity are entitled to enjoy these blessings, and rural 
America will continue to be seriously handicapped by their 
absence until the doors of the new rural school can be 
thrown open wide to this training of man's higher nature. 

That we have been able, in the last twenty-five years, 
to revolutionize educational ideals in practically all our 
industrial urban centers by creating a public sentiment 

education which puts industrial and vocational training 

on a par with the traditional, so-called "cultural educa- 

[ 80 1 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

tion," is a triumph for democracy and a tribute to the 
nation. It means that as a people we have come to re- 
gard the ability to make a living in accordance with Amer- 
ican standards, and the making of some distinct personal 
contribution to the world's industries, just as valuable 
and honorable as the training for a profession or for a 
life of leisure and enjoyment. It would seem strange 
indeed if now the rural communities, in which industrial 
training finds its greatest opportunity for service, should 
long continue to lag behind and stick to its "bookish 
schools," the legacy of a former age and condition; but 
the practical difficulties to overcome in making this change 
in the rural districts are formidable. 

Theoretically, it ought to be an easy matter to con- 
vince every farmer of the necessity for a change in the 
rural school curriculum and for the introduction of such 
subjects as agriculture, manual training, household 
economy, and the like into all schools, but the complete 
reorganization of the school system and the added ex- 
pense connected with such a program are frowned upon 
and meet with stubborn resistance. The new conception 
of the rural school is nothing less than the complete trans- 
formation of a system that has scarcely been altered 
for a century ; and even with a thoroughgoing campaign 
of education and enlightenment, progress must needs 
be slow. The magnitude of the problem is not yet suf- 
ficiently understood and appreciated by thousands of 
wide-awake educational leaders, to say nothing of the lay- 
men who have had less opportunity to probe the subject 
at close range. Our greatest obstacle is to overcome the 
inertia of a vast rural population, conservative by nature 
and reluctant to adopt new standards. When the con- 
solidated school has finally come to stay and has attained 
its logical development, the following important indus- 

[81 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

trial subjects will be prominent features of its course of 
study : agriculture, manual training (including woodwork 
and blacksmithing), sewing, cooking, household manage- 
ment, and home projects. The school will also play a 
leading part in the promotion of rural health and of clean 
sport and recreation. These two topics will receive 
attention in succeeding chapters; but a brief outline of 
the industrial subjects will indicate their scope and 
usefulness. 

Rural life centers about the country home and in the 
one great rural industry, agriculture. Therefore, the 
farmer's big, vital problem is how to make 
his country home the happiest and best pos- 
sible place to dwell in while engaged in his life work, 
and how to make agriculture profitable, enjoyable, and 
capable of supporting the right kind of a home. That 
for this reason agriculture is the logical subject around 
which to build the rural school curriculum, is self-evident. 
The question that remains is, What should the study of 
agriculture embrace and how should the other subjects 
correlate with it? 

To begin with, a strong course of nature study should 
run through the grades and blend into the formal, in- 
tensive, and scientific study of agriculture in the eighth 
grade and the rural high school. The particular mission 
of this nature study is to open the minds and eyes of the 
young to the wonders of their environment and to the 
golden opportunity for first-hand observation and lessons 
in soils, plant and animal life, and a host of natural phe- 
nomena with which they come in daily contact. The 
possibilities of the study are infinite and of absorbing 
interest, and the trained teacher will find nature study 
an effective means for converting a "dead school" into 
one that is very much alive. To supplement the work 

f 8* 1 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

of the school and make it directly applicable to the child's 
home life, the planting and care of flower beds, bird 
study and bird protection, home gardening, weed con- 
trol, and similar activities, all fall within the scope of the 
elementary grades. In the grammar grades and high 
school the work should expand into and embrace general 
agriculture, field crops, animal husbandry, horticulture, 
and soils. Both laboratory and field work should be 
given prominence throughout the course. According 
to the particular interest of the community, emphasis 
must be laid upon its specialty, like fruit raising, grain 
or cotton culture, or other lines of community endeavor 
in which the majority of the farmers may be engaged or 
which may be especially adapted to the locality. This 
conforms to the broad educational principle that the 
schools of a community must adjust its citizens to the 
life of that community. 

In every consolidated school worthy of the name, 
a workshop in manual training is indispensable. The 
modern farm with its variety of machinery, ManuaI 
tools, special types of buildings, drainage training 
systems, concrete construction work, etc., taxes the in- 
genuity of the farmer to keep things in proper repair 
and calls for a deftness of hand and no end of originality 
and self-confidence. Therefore, a thorough course in 
manual training is highly desirable and useful. The 
work attempted may embrace rope tying and splicing, 
the care and sharpening of tools, harness and leather 
work, concrete construction, the elements of blacksmi th- 
ing, and the making of ordinary repairs on buildings. 
The older boys, who have mastered the underlying prin- 
ciples of manual training, should branch out into project 
work and construct chicken coops and brooders, seed- 
corn racks, feeding racks for stock, hay racks, wagon 

[ 83 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

boxes, home furniture, and similar articles commonly- 
found on the farm and in the home but not too difficult 
to make. The list is merely suggestive and will vary 
with school or community or with the season of the year. 
No country school should make the error of patterning 
its manual-training course after that of the average city 
or town school. The underlying principles are the same 
for each course, but the applications differ widely. 

While the country girls, like the country boys, should 
have good training in the elements of agriculture, the 
_ . , distinctive field of the girls along industrial 

Sewing, cook- . ■ . . . 

ing, and home lines is the art of home making, embracing 
management SU ch branches as sewing, cooking, and home 
management. To furnish the proper facilities for this 
work, a well-equipped domestic-science and sewing de- 
partment is as necessary for them as the manual-training 
shop is for the boys. The equipment need not be elabo- 
rate or expensive, but should at least be on a par with the 
facilities for work of this kind found in the better rural 
homes and may even be somewhat in advance of them 
in order to impress upon the community the need of 
lightening the burdens of the average farm home. The 
farm kitchen deserves to share more generally in the 
blessings of labor-saving devices so commonly found 
outside the home but not sufficiently appreciated inside 
it. A little investment in home comforts and conveniences 
adds more good cheer and contentment to farm life than 
any costly out-of-door machinery could possibly do. A 
feature of the work done by the cooking class should be the 
preparation of hot lunches for all pupils at the noon hour. 

Curiously, some people have a very erroneous notion 
of this so-called "hot lunch" idea. It is perhaps more 
extensively developed in Minnesota than in any other 
state; it is demanded of every consolidated school of 

[84] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

the state between November 1 and April 1 of each school 
year. It is a phase of practical hygiene and consists of 
the serving of some hot dish at the noon hour with the 
usual cold lunch which the pupil brings with him from 
home. The hot lunch may consist of vegetable soup, 
baked potatoes, a dish of rice, and a cup of cocoa or 
other hot drink. Experience has proved that the cost 
of such a dish is negligible as compared with the enjoy- 
ment and benefit to the children. To see a hundred or 
more children thus gathered about a big community 
table, eating their lunch together and learning valuable 
lessons of table etiquette and social intercourse, makes a 
profound impression upon an observer. Generally speak- 
ing, people have not yet grasped the full significance of 
the hot lunch in the rural school ; but there is wisdom and 
method in a state-wide requirement for serving hot 
lunches in every consolidated school. 

Prejudice against the teaching of industrial subjects 
in the country school has been very pronounced, and 
when we consider the utter unadaptability ^ 

Opposition to 

of the one-room school for this work* no one industrial 
can wonder at the situation. In the first work 
place, the buildings already constructed have no con- 
veniences for industrial work, and their remodeling to 
give adequate facilities would be nearly as costly as 
new buildings. In the second place, to undertake the 
industrial work here outlined in addition to the usual 
work of a one-teacher school is plainly impossible, even 
if the room and facilities were at hand. It would neces- 
sitate the hiring of another teacher for the small number 
of pupils found in the average country school. This 
would be extremely wasteful and foolish when the con- 
solidated school solves the problem so admirably. Out- 
side the consolidated school, therefore, industrial educa- 

[85] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

tion in the country school will be negligible and of small 
value when attempted; but, given the facilities of the 
consolidated school and specially trained teachers for 
the various branches, it will have a far-reaching effect 
upon rural education. Under those conditions, opposi- 
tion to industrial work will be short-lived. There is no 
doubt that industrial and vocational training are des- 
tined to be leading factors in revitalizing, redirecting, 
and reorganizing the rural school. 

Nothing can demonstrate more vividly the restricted 
opportunities of teacher and pupils in the one-teacher 
school than the available time for recitation 
element for an< ^ instruction in each grade. A glance at 
recitation and the accompanying sample programs of reci- 
tation will make this clear. The one repre- 
sents the conditions in a one-room school with an enroll- 
ment of twenty-five to thirty-five pupils, distributed 
over the usual eight grades of the elementary school, 
while the other shows the program of the seventh and 
eighth grades of the grammar department in a consolidated 
school with five teachers. This school is fully equipped 
for industrial work and offers two years of high school 
training beyond the grades. 

Dividing the 330 minutes that the one-room school is 
actually in session from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. by the number 
of periods, gives approximately nine minutes per period; 
but at least one minute must be allowed in such a school 
for the changing of classes and the hurried direction of 
seat work between periods. Therefore an average of 
eight minutes per period is the maximum time available 
for recitation and instruction. This arrangement affords 
a total of about fifty minutes daily for recitation and 
instruction in each grade. If the fifty minutes are de- 
ducted from the total of 330 minutes, it leaves 280 minutes 
[ 86 1 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

per class for study and dreary waiting for the next recita- 
tions. No one will have the temerity to assert that 
effective instruction is possible under such conditions 
even if the teacher have every lesson well in hand and is 
fully capable of teaching it. But what teacher could 
possibly prepare for thirty-five daily recitations and keep 
it up month after month? 

Some may contend that this program of thirty-five 
daily periods is an extreme example of present-day rural 
school conditions ; but the average number of recitations 
for rural schools in the United States is, by competent 
authority, placed at twenty-nine per day, so that a large 
number of teachers evidently have thirty-five or more 
daily recitations. This seems to be corroborated by the 
careful investigations of Mr. Harold W. Foght, 1 who 
gathered reports from fifty-five typical counties in all 
parts of the country, and whose inquiry revealed that 
66.2 per cent of the rural teachers reporting taught eight 
grades or more and had from twenty-two to thirty-five 
or more daily recitations. Furthermore, since 937 
schools of the 2874 reporting had more than one teacher, 
it is quite probable that the larger one-teacher schools 
with twenty-five or more pupils enrolled had an average 
of thirty-five or more daily recitations, even if no in- 
dustrial work were undertaken and the course of study 
were limited to the subjects listed on the sample program 
presented on the following page. 

On the other hand, the program representing the work 
of the seventh and eighth grades of the consolidated school 
shows but fourteen daily periods, with a total of 315 
minutes of actual school work from 9 a.m. till 3.30 p.m. 

1 See Bulletin No. 49, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, on 
"Efficiency and Preparation of Rural School Teachers," by Harold W. 
Foght. 

[87] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Illustration of Injustice of Unequal Opportunity Suffered by 
Pupils of One-room Country School as Compared with 
Pupils in Village Graded and Consolidated Schools 



TYPICAL DAILY PROGRAM OF RECITATIONS IN ONE-ROOM RURAL SCHOOL 
GRADES ONE TO EIGHT, INCLUSIVE 



TIME A.M. 


MINUTES 


SUBJECT 


GRADES 


9.00- 9.10 


10 


Opening exercises 


All 


9.10- 9.20 


10 


Word drills in reading classes 


All 


9.20- 9.25 


5 


Reading 


1st 


9.25- 9.35 


10 


Reading 


2d 


9.35- 9.45 


10 


Reading 


3d 


9.45- 9.55 


10 


Reading 


4th 


9.55-10.05 


10 


Reading 


5th and 6th 


10.05-10.15 


10 


Phonics 


First three 


10.15-10.30 


15 


Arithmetic 


7th and 8th 


Recess 








10.45-10.55 


10 


Numbers 


1st and 2d 


10.55-11.05 


10 


Arithmetic 


3d 


11.05-11.15 


10 


Arithmetic 


4th 


11.15-11.20 


5 


Story-telling 


1st and 2d 


11.20-11.30 


10 


Arithmetic 


5th and 6th 


11.30-11.40 


10 


Grammar 


8th 


11.40-11.50 


10 


Language 


6th and 7th 


11.50-12.00 


10 


Writing 


All 


Noon Inter- 








mission 








TIME P.M. 








1.00- 1.10 


10 


Language 


3d 


1.10- 1.20 


10 


Language 


4th and 5th 


1.20- 1.30 


10 


Reading 


1st 


1.30- 1.40 


10 


Reading 


2d 


1.40- 1.50 


10 


Elementary physiology 


6th and 7th 


1.50- 2.00 


10 


Civics 


8th 


2.00- 2.10 


10 


Home geography 


3d and 4th 


2.10- 2.20 


10 


Geography 


5th and 6th 


2.20- 2.30 


10 


Geography 


7th and 8th 


Recess 








2.45- 2.50 


5 


Primary industrial work 


1st and 2d 


2.50- 3.00 


10 


History 


8th 


3.00- 3.10 


10 


History 


6th and 7th 


3.10- 3.20 


10 


History stories 


4th and 5th 


3.20- 3.30 


10 


Reading 


7th and 8th 


3.30- 3.40 


10 


Word drill and spelling 


1st and 2d 


3.40- 3.45 


5 


Spelling 


3d 


3.45- 3.50 


5 


Spelling 


4th 


3.50- 3.55 


5 


Spelling 


5th and 6th 


3.55- 4.00 


5 


Spelling 


7th and 8th 



[ 88] 



CURRICULUM OF THE SCHOOL 

CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL PROGRAM, GRAMMAR DEPARTMENT 
GRADES SEVEN AND EIGHT 



TIME A.M. 


MINUTES 


SUBJECT 


GRADES 


9.00- 9.15 


15 


Opening exercises and current events 


Both 


9.15- 9.40 


25 


Arithmetic 


8th 


9.40-10.05 


25 


Arithmetic 


7th 


10.05-10.30 


25 


Agriculture 


8th 


Recess 








10.45-11.10 


25 


Language 


7th 


11.10-11.35 


25 


History and civics 


8th 


11.35-11.45 


10 


Spelling 


Both 


11.45-12.00 


15 


Writing 


Both 


Noon Inter- 








mission 








TIME P.M. 








1.00- 1.25 


25 


Geography 


7th 


1.25- 1.50 


25 


Grammar and composition 


8th 


1.50- 2.15 


25 


History 


7th 


2.15- 2.30 


15 


Music or drawing 


Both 


2.30- 2.55 


25 


Reading 


, Both 


2.55- 3.30 


35 


J Manual training 
\ Domestic science 


Boys 
Girls 



Instead of having fifty minutes out of 330 per day for 
each grade devoted to recitation and instruction, this 
program provides for 200 minutes per day for each grade 
out of a total of 315 minutes during which the school is 
actually in session. Moreover, the similarity of the work 
in these two grades makes the teacher's task less difficult, 
and enables her to make preparation for each lesson, 
to say nothing of the student's opportunity for industrial 
work and inspirational subjects like music, drawing, etc., 
taught by special teachers. A little thoughtful study of 
this comparison should convince the most radical oppo- 
nent of the consolidated school that its advantages over 
the one-teacher school are tremendous. Although this 
particular comparison is made between the grammar 
department of the consolidated school and the one-room 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

school, it is equally striking for other departments. Since 
the high school facilities in the one-room school are en- 
tirely lacking, it makes the discrepancy still greater be- 
tween the two classes when this is taken into account. 

The program for the one-room school given on page 88 
is neither the best nor the worst followed by rural teachers 
of today. It shows at least some ability in the teacher to 
combine classes and economize time, but whether the aver- 
age country teacher would be able to make still further 
combinations and reduce the number of recitations without 
bungling the recitations is doubtful. There are many 
superintendents and program manufacturers who insist 
that we must have more alternation of subjects and 
combination of classes, and some even go so far as to 
advocate that the eight grades of a country school be 
divided into three or four "divisions " of two or three grades 
each, in order that recitation periods may be lengthened. 

There is just one fault to find with this proposition. 
It demands expert teachers to put them into practice. 
To combine pupils of different ages and abilities into a 
single class and try to teach such a class the same lessons, 
taxes the wits of the most skillful superintendents; and 
to hear two or three lessons simultaneously, except in 
such a subject as spelling, is not a trick to be tried by a 
novice in education, as most country teachers are. 

Such programs work beautifully — on paper and in 
the office of the superintendent; but they are seldom 
successful in the schoolroom unless in the hands of a 
master teacher. For the average country teacher it is 
safer to trust her "shoestring" program of thirty-five 
daily recitations than to attempt a highly complex com- 
bination of classes or alternation of subjects — unless 
she has been thoroughly trained in the working of such a 
program by an expert supervisor. 

[ 90 1 



CHAPTER SEVEN 
The Rural High School 

ACCORDING to the Federal Bureau of Education 
the high school enrollment has more than doubled 
between the years of 1902 and 19 15. 1 Out of a total enroll- 
ment of nearly 20,000,000 children in the elementary and 
secondary schools of the United States, the „ „ . 

i-i ii n <• The growth of 

aggregate high school enrollment lor 1915 secondary 

was 1,484,028. This marvelous growth of education 
secondary education is gratifying indeed; but unfor- 
tunately the blessings of high school training are almost 
entirely confined to city and village children. No statis- 
tics are available to show just what proportion of the 
1,484,028 high school students in 1915 actually resided 
on the farm ; but it is safe to say that less than ten per 
cent were really country boys and girls. Until recently 
the high school has been looked upon as beyond the reach 
of the rural community ; but, in fact, the rural child needs 
high school training fully as much as the urban child, if 
not more so. The high school is not a luxury to the 
country community, but a necessity. The problem is, 
how to bring it to the country boy and girl. It must 
come straight to the door of rural people and not be a 
"remote institution" or boarding school. Various expe- 
dients, short of consolidation, have been tried in a number 
of states to place high schools within reach of the coun- 
try child, with invariably the same result — they reach 
but a small fraction of the children and must remain 
temporary expedients. 

Perhaps the nearest approach to the building up of 
bona fide rural high schools outside the consolidated 
school is the township high school. Illinois easily ranks 
1 Report of United States Bureau of Education, 1916, Vol. I, page 107. 

r 9i i 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

first among the states of this country as an exponent 
of the township high school system. Even as far back as 
Township 1^67 she established her first township high 

and county school by special charter, at Princeton. Later, 
in 1872, a state- wide law was enacted mak- 
ing such schools possible in every township of the state. 
This law was again amended in 1911 to permit the forma- 
tion of township high school districts without regard to 
township or county lines. Under the several provisions, 
120 township high school districts had been established 
by 1916. They vary in size from 30 sections of land to 
130 sections. 

The legislature of 1917 passed a still more sweeping act 
for the establishment of so-called community high school 
districts, which can be formed easily about a convenient 
community center and may be carved from one or more 
existing high school or non-high-school districts. The 
same legislature provided further that the territory in 
each county lying outside of established high school dis- 
tricts should be converted into, and be known as, a non- 
high-school district. This is governed by a board of five 
members, who have power to levy a sufficient tax on the 
territory to pay the full tuition of any eighth-grade 
graduate of the non-high-school district attending a 
neighboring high school. 

These several acts, theoretically, open up every high 
school in Illinois, free of tuition, to any boy or girl in the 
state ; but they leave the important question of trans- 
portation unsolved, and many country points are too 
remote from a high school to derive much real benefit 
from the system. The plan has the further drawback for 
country people that nearly all the high schools are located 
in cities or villages and cannot be classed as bona fide 
rural high schools, specifically adapted for the training 

[92] 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

of country boys and girls. The system, finally, acts as a 
check upon real consolidation, as Illinois plainly demon- 
strates, for of all the important agricultural states, no 
other is so far behind the procession in rural school con- 
solidation. Though the high schools have opened their 
doors to the rural school graduate, the country pupil 
below the high school is still condemned to suffer the in- 
conveniences and shortcomings of the one-room school. 
For the rural people, such high schools are mere tem- 
porary expedients, and complete consolidated schools 
should be placed in every rural community as fast as 
readjustments can be made. 

County high schools, as their name implies, are second- 
ary schools established or designated to furnish high school 
training for common school graduates of a county not 
residing in local high school districts. Their mission is iden- 
tical with that of the township high schools just described ; 
but since they are supported by a county-wide tax and 
serve a larger area, they may more frequently be built in 
the open country than the township high schools. Where 
this is the case, they have the proper rural atmosphere 
and minister directly to the wants of rural communities ; 
but since they are still more remote from the country 
homes than the township high schools, they minister to 
a smaller number of pupils than the latter. They find 
favor, however, in sparsely settled counties which are as 
yet unable to support consolidated rural high schools. 
Nebraska has established a large number of county high 
schools within the last few years. 

Minnesota has no township or county high schools, but 
opens up every local high school, free of tuition, to all the 
children of the state who have graduated from the eighth 
grade. To compensate the local school for thus educat- 
ing non-resident pupils, the state offers liberal annual aid 

[ 93 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

to each accredited school from its general revenue fund. 
This aid varies from a minimum of $1800 per annum to 
other at- a maximum of several thousand dollars if 

tempts to the school will maintain well-equipped de- 

school training partments in agriculture, manual training, 
to country domestic science, etc. Educational speakers 

often refer to this liberal state aid as the 
proceeds of Minnesota's magnificent permanent school 
fund of $30,000,000; but they are entirely mistaken 
about this. The income from the permanent school 
fund is distributed to all schools alike on the basis 
of school attendance and has no connection with the 
special state aid, which is appropriated by successive legis- 
latures and levied 6n the property of the state as a direct 
annual tax. Other states, like Iowa, provide that rural 
school graduates may attend a neighboring high school 
and the home district will pay the tuition of such pupils 
up to a certain maximum. In still others, the pupil, or 
his parent, must pay the tuition and furnish his own con- 
veyance to the school or seek board and room in the high 
school town. 

These different methods of bringing the high school a 
little nearer to the country child have rendered valuable 
service in emphasizing the need of high school education 
for country boys and girls ; but none of them solves the 
problem of rural secondary education. Its complete solu- 
tion will be found only in the consolidated school, backed 
by the transportation of pupils at public expense. 

The reasons why county, township, city, or village 
high school systems cannot adequately serve the sur- 
rounding country territory are many, but chief among 
them are these : 

1. Only a very small number of country children live 
within walking distance of established high schools, and 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

the expense of individual, private transportation limits 
this method to some wealthy families living at a greater 
distance. Families who live more distant 
still, either must seek a boarding place for objections to 
their children in the high school town and the systems 
trust them to the care of strangers from two 
to four years during the most critical period of life, or the 
family must forsake the farm and move to town with 
the children during this time. Either course is almost 
certain to destroy the ties that bind such children to the 
farm and country life. 

f 2. Village and city high schools are necessarily organ- 
ized to train their pupils for other occupations than farm- 
ing. Even in those schools that offer a course in agricul- 
ture, the general social life and atmosphere of the school 
tend towards city life and away from the farm. The boy 
or girl who spends four years in such surroundings is 
seldom content to go back to the farm, but forsakes the 
country permanently soon after high school graduation. 

3. The principal objection to county and large district 
high schools is their inaccessibility. They must become 
boarding schools with dormitories, like the old academies 
or modern colleges ; but even under responsible and intel- 
ligent management a dormitory cannot take the place of 
home and the family circle during the high school age of 
boys and girls. Furthermore, few farmers would or could 
bear the expense of such training at a distant school, or 
would assume the risk for their children's moral safety. 
Naturally, all children below the age of eighteen years 
should be educated near home and should be at home 
with their parents at night. Finally, children should re- 
main in daily contact with actual farm life during the 
formative period when approaching young manhood or 
womanhood. It is then that home life makes its deepest 

f 95 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

impressions. Boarding schools are not democratic insti- 
tutions. They are for the classes rather than the masses. 

Under exceptional conditions, county or large district 
high schools will serve a useful purpose for many years 
Rural second- to come - Where the obstacles to complete 
ary schools in consolidation are too formidable at present, 
the county high schools must be the chief fac- 
tor in bringing limited high school training to the rural 
districts. This is the situation in many of the sparsely 
settled and impoverished sections of the Southern states, 
where the separate schools for the two races augment the 
difficulty of providing high schools for country children. 
The South faces a school problem in many sections that 
is wholly unappreciated or unknown in the rest of the 
country ; and her people must find, for the time being at 
least, a different solution for the country schools. Fully 
realizing this, the state of North Carolina has worked out 
a system of Farm Life Schools, 1 a type of rural secondary 
schools that serve large areas and are particularly adapted 
to that section. The schools are intensely practical and 
lay great stress upon agriculture and industrial training 
generally. Their influence on the rural population has 
been marked. 

Georgia is reaping similar benefits from her congres- 
sional-district agricultural high schools, Mississippi and 
others from their county high schools, while still others, 
like Virginia and Tennessee, give liberal financial aid for 
the teaching of agriculture and industrial work in both 
rural and town high schools. The trend of all these efforts 
is in the right direction, looking for speedy betterment of 
rural schools. Another peculiar problem in rural educa- 
tion is met in parts of certain Western states, where small 

1 For details of their course of study see H. W. Foght, The Rural 
Teacher and His Work. 

[96] 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

communities are clustered in the irrigated valleys and 
separated by stretches of barren and rough territory. 
Here the individual settlements are too small to permit of 
local high schools, and large district high schools must be 
established to furnish the proper educational facilities. 
The Jordan High School near Sandy, Utah, and the Gon- 
zales Union High School of Salinas County, California, 
are typical illustrations of this condition. There are also 
many rough mountain districts in states both East and 
West that must resort to this type of school to provide 
what limited secondary education such districts can hope 
to attain for years to come ; but in all other rural districts 
the consolidated school is the logical solution. 

RURAL SCHOOL EXTENSION WORK 

As the work of all schools has become more practical 
and vocational, their usefulness has been greatly in- 
creased and their scope extended, so that now The field of 
they minister to thousands of people who have extension work 
passed the school age, as well as to the children regularly 
enrolled in some school. This expansion of public school 
service has found expression in the establishment of eve- 
ning schools, continuation schools, vacation schools, winter 
short courses, boys' and girls' club work, and all manner 
of agricultural extension work. In this, as in most de- 
partures from the established order in education, the 
colleges and urban systems took the lead because the 
larger systems have a distinct advantage over the small 
schools in working out new problems. The one- teacher 
school is for various reasons the least adapted for carrying 
out a program of extension work. In the first place, the 
teaching force is poorly prepared for effective instruction 
in special work suited to adults ; and, in the second place, 
it would be unreasonable to expect the teacher of a one- 

[97] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

room school to assume the heavy burden of evening 
classes, or other regular extension work, in addition to her 
arduous task while the district school is in session. For 
these and other reasons, we must look to the larger schools 
with special teachers to carry on the extension work. 
Only in rare cases can the district school undertake it 
with success. 

In spite of the prodigious sums spent annually in the 
United States for education, 1 we have every reason to be 
The robiem ashamed of the large number of adult illit- 
of rural erates still found within our borders. The 

illiteracy federal census report for 1910 showed a total 

of 5,516,163 persons in this country, ten years of age 
and over, who could neither read nor write. Fifty-eight 
per cent of these were native and foreign-born whites, 
forty per cent were negroes, and two per cent were Indians, 
Chinese, and Japanese. 2 Contrary to general belief, most 
of the illiterates are not found in the cities with their 
slums and colonies of foreign immigrants, but in the rural 
districts. Rural illiteracy in 1910 was twice as large as 
urban, being 10.2 per cent in the country, against 5.1 per 
cent in the city. For the entire nation, an average of 7.7 
per cent of the population, ten years of age and over, was 
shown to be illiterate — a very much larger percentage 
than that of any leading nation of Europe. A heroic 
effort, taking the form of rural school extension work, 
has been made in recent years to remove this stain of 
adult illiteracy, and in this movement the one-room 
school has taken the lead. 

The famous "moonlight schools" of Kentucky were 
initiated by Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart of Rowan County, 

1 See Chapter IV, page 42. 

2 For distribution by states see Statistical Abstract of the United 
States for 1916, page 73. 

f 98 1 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

Kentucky. Mrs. Stewart conceived the idea and estab- 
lished the schools for the express purpose of furnishing 
the vast body of adult illiterates in the Moonlight 
mountain districts of Rowan County with at schools 
least the rudiments of an elementary education. Since 
enough illiterates to form suitable classes were found 
in the several school districts, the existing rural schools 
and school districts formed convenient centers for the 
establishment of moonlight schools. Taking advantage 
of these means at her command, Mrs. Stewart made a 
stirring appeal to the rural teachers of her county to 
volunteer for this noble service. A host of them responded 
instantly, without thought or hope of financial compensa- 
tion, and rendered excellent service in putting the move- 
ment on a firm foundation. In the short space of time 
since 1911, when Mrs. Stewart organized her first moon- 
light school, the system has spread over seventeen states, 
and its enthusiastic supporters have rallied around the 
slogan to stamp out illiteracy in the United States 
by 1920. This is a beautiful example of the far-reaching 
effect of inspired leadership. 

A minor movement of similar nature, but designed to 
serve a different class of rural people, originated in Chero- 
kee County, Iowa, under the leadership of volunteer 
County Superintendent Katherine Ross, and continuation 
has been styled "The Volunteer Continuation 
School Movement." It is but loosely connected with the 
existing public school system and consists, in reality, of 
private school organizations. These organizations are 
formed and supported by students above the age of four- 
teen years who are eager to continue their education be- 
yond the scope of the district school but find it difficult 
or impossible to take a regular high school course in some 
neighboring city or village school. In Iowa these schools 

[99] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

are called "township special schools," and by reason of 
their practical and vocational course of study, of their 
skillful and well-paid teachers, and of their system of 
individual instruction, they have attained great popularity 
and exerted a wholesome influence on rural community 
life. 

Superintendent Ross deserves the gratitude of country 
people for pointing the way to a simple, modest method of 
providing something better than merely an eighth-grade 
education in any rural community ; but the question im- 
mediately arises, Why should the rich farmers of Iowa 
resort to a subterfuge like township special schools when 
they are perfectly able to establish excellent consolidated 
rural high schools in every county of the state ? If there 
are students beyond the age of fourteen years who can- 
not take a full high school course in such consolidated 
schools, special winter short courses may easily be ar- 
ranged for their benefit and for such length of time as 
may suit their convenience during the winter months 
when there is a lull in the farm work. If all educational 
work were made a part of the public school system, no 
duplication of buildings, teaching force, and equipment 
would be necessary, and secondary as well as elementary 
education would become a public and not a private matter. 
Finally, every phase of school extension work not con- 
nected with the public school system weakens that system 
and robs both grades and high school classes of students, 
of financial backing, and of solid community support. 
In any event, extension work is less likely to succeed out- 
side the public school system than within it. 

Many of our states have foolishly tried to make the 
secondary education of farmer boys and girls an append- 
age to city and village high schools. The sooner we 
throw this notion into the discard and place within reach 

[ 100 1 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

of the farm home a true type of better rural schools 
around which farmers will rally with enthusiasm, the 
better for the future of America's farmers 
and her wonderful agricultural possibilities, misconception 
When our educational leaders shall clearly about rural 
perceive that the village and city high school S 
problem is essentially different from the rural high school 
problem, and that the addition of an agricultural depart- 
ment to a city high school cannot and will not convert it 
into a rural high school, we shall materially hasten the 
solution of the rural school problem. Just as the city 
high school, if true to its mission, must in addition to a 
broad foundation in general culture furnish its students 
with the best possible training for the industrial, voca- 
tional, and professional life of the city, so must the rural 
high school supplement the general education of its stu- 
dents with distinct training for the life and work of the 
farm. In their industrial and vocational education the 
two systems will differ widely; but in their training for 
citizenship — including aesthetic, moral, social, and spirit- 
ual education — the work will be almost identical. 

In this misconception of rural secondary training, the 
farmers have frequently been their own worst enemies. 
Not a few of the otherwise intelligent and progressive 
farmers have preferred to send their children to the city 
high school with its more diversified and presumably more 
cultural course of study, when they should have patron- 
ized and supported the local high school of their own 
district. Such action is equivalent to an admission that 
city life is superior to country life and that training for 
the former is more valuable than training for the latter. 
Nothing can be more silly than such an assumption if 
both farmer and city dweller have the right view of life. 
Neither should a farmer make the excuse that a country 

[101 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

district cannot support as good a high school as the city 
district. If he is at all willing to pay liberally for the 
education of his children, and will tax himself for school 
purposes as freely as his city cousin, he need not worry 
about having a first-class school within easy reach of his 
home. Under present agricultural conditions, the aver- 
age American farmer has a better chance to make his life 
comfortable, financially independent, and morally clean 
than the average city man; and it is not the lack of 
money in the pocket or the strong box of the farmer that 
makes rural education so inferior to urban education. The 
average farmer needs to view the rural community in a 
larger perspective — as a place worthy of his highest respect 
and best endeavors, and not as a place inferior to the city. 
Every school must be in harmony with its environ- 
ment, loyal to its patrons, and devoted to the highest 
Experience of good of the community. Any departure 
urban high f rG m this ideal is inimical to the best inter- 

schools in 

giving training est of the school ; and any plan to subsidize 
for rural life ft f or foe purpose of giving instruction in 
subjects which are of no vital concern to the people of 
the community itself, is futile and unwise. This has been 
the experience of many city and village high schools that 
have added so-called agricultural departments to their 
schools for the express purpose of training country boys 
and girls in them for the life upon the farm. No doubt 
the most extensive experiment of this kind ever under- 
taken by any state was tried out in Minnesota. In 1909 
its legislature provided special state aid of $2500 annually 
to ten village high schools for the establishment of strong 
agricultural departments, offering not only a full four- 
year course in scientific agriculture to high school students 
but providing special agricultural short courses to older 
country boys and girls of the neighborhood who had either 
f 102 1 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

graduated from the district school or had left it for other 
reasons. The hope and belief of the legislators and of 
most of the educational leaders was that these young 
people would flock to the new agricultural short courses, 
since instruction was entirely free to the pupils themselves 
or the home district. This initial act of 1909 was later 
supplemented by another law which granted liberal state 
aid to any high school of the state which would establish 
a good agricultural department and offer substantially 
the same kind of instruction and extension work as the 
original ten schools. 

In the first burst of enthusiasm, the young people of 
the neighboring farms responded to the call of the new 
departments, and classes of ten to thirty short-course 
students were organized in upwards of a hundred village 
and city high schools. But in a few years the fond hopes 
of the most ardent advocates of these short courses were 
completely shattered. Today they have been abandoned 
in all but a handful of schools, and these are located in 
districts where peculiar local conditions favor the con- 
tinuation of the work. This has been the net result of 
the much-heralded and eulogized boys' and girls' short 
courses in Minnesota high schools. The lesson should be 
plain to any intelligent student of the problem. Effective 
and lasting rural school extension work must be carried 
on in bona fide and not in pseudo rural schools. Short 
courses, moreover, should speedily be reduced to the 
minimum, everywhere. Rural people should be encour- 
aged to have their children graduate from a four-year 
course of scientific agricultural training and not rely upon 
the milk-and-water diet of a short course; but where 
graduation from high school is not possible, the short 
course should be held in a rural high school and not in a 
city school with an urban atmosphere. 

f 103 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

The question, then, naturally arises, Is there a place 
for an agricultural department in a city or village high 
school ? Yes, there is, most decidedly. It has the same 
reason for existence that a foreign-language department 
or a science department has in such a school. There will 
always be found in such a school a certain number of 
pupils who desire to study agriculture for the sake of its 
bearing on all life, both rural and urban ; and these pupils 
should have the privilege of studying agriculture for the 
purpose of gaining a clear insight into the most funda- 
mental of human occupations. 

Another important question that may as well be 
answered here is, Can a village school be made a rural 
school to all intents and purposes and should a consoli- 
dated school ever be placed in a village or town ? When- 
ever the village or town in question is small and its in- 
terests are identical with the interests of the surrounding 
territory, a consolidated school may safely be located in 
it, provided there is harmony in the entire territory and 
the purpose is to build up a first-class consolidated school 
with a distinct rural atmosphere; but where the central 
village is large and the interests of its citizens differ con- 
siderably from that of the farming community surround- 
ing it, the consolidated school should preferably be located 
in the open country. Dual-purpose schools, like dual-pur- 
pose cows, may be disappointing. A rural school must be 
located in a rural-minded community and must be admin- 
istered by rural-minded people. Substitutes should not 
be accepted, unless local conditions leave no other choice. 

Nation-wide boys' and girls' club work has taken the 
country fairly by storm. The seed was sown by some 
Boys' and girls' l° ca ^ clubs organized nearly twenty years ago 
club work i n Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other 

states. In New York it became state wide as early as 

[ 104 ] 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

1898, under the direction of Cornell University ; but the 
movement did not become national in character until 
1907. In the preceding year, 1906, Dr. Seaman A. Knapp 
was employed by the United States Government to start 
farm demonstration work for adult farmers in some of 
the Southern states; and the expenses of the under- 
taking were defrayed by the General Education Board of 
New York and the national government, jointly. Directly 
upon the heels of this movement, a modest corn-club asso- 
ciation with a total of 162 boys between the ages of ten 
and eighteen years sprang up the following year in the 
state of Mississippi, under the leadership of Mr. W. H. 
Smith, who later became supervisor of rural schools. 
The achievement of this handful of boys set fire to the 
entire South, so that by 1912 over 100,000 boys were 
registered in the corn clubs of that section alone. In 
1910, the girls' canning and garden clubs began in the 
same modest way as the corn clubs, having a total of 325 
members in the states of Virginia and South Carolina 
during the first year ; but the membership grew to 30,000 
in two years and has never slackened its pace since. 

The South has but pointed out the way for others to 
follow, and all sorts of agricultural projects are now 
carried on in thousands of boys' and girls' Present status 
clubs which dot the country from ocean to of club work 
ocean. Under the leadership of Mr. O. H. Benson, the 
United States Department of Agriculture definitely under- 
took the task of federating the various clubs into one 
huge national organization; and in 1912 it formed the 
thirty-three Western and Northern states into a division 
similar to that of the fifteen Southern states already 
organized. This new division has increased its club 
membership from a total of 22,000 boys and girls in 1912 
to more than 450,000 in 1918. In six years the work of 

[ 105 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

this department has grown so tremendously that Mr. 
Benson shares with no less than ten federal assistants 
the work of supervising this great industrial army of boys 
and girls. The additional state, county, district, and 
emergency club leaders appointed for the period of the 
war, all cooperating with Mr. Benson through the agri- 
cultural colleges and state departments of the several 
states, now number over 200 in the Northwestern Division 
alone. Just to supervise the work, the federal govern- 
ment set aside, during the fiscal year 1917, a regular 
appropriation of $115,000, and more than doubled the 
amount by a special appropriation of $235,000 to stimu- 
late food production during the war. To these purely 
administrative expenses must be added vast sums in the 
form of prize money and appropriations made by states, 
state fair bodies, counties, and local associations, so that 
the few thousand dollars devoted to club work less than 
ten years ago have been increased to several millions 
annually. Nothing of a similar nature, ever undertaken 
by the children of any other country, can compare with 
this achievement of American boys and girls. 

To describe the club work in detail would require a 
good-sized volume, and the succeeding explanation is but 
Some of the a fragment of the record. Nor must we, when 
results quoting mere figures and money values, lose 

sight of the intangible but none the less real benefits to 
society. This intangible but larger purpose of the work 
has been admirably stated in the Indiana Report on 
supervised home projects for the year 1916, which says : * 

"Things of greatest worth are not valued in terms of 
money. Therefore, when we say that during the year 
1916, 21,532 pupils in Indiana produced through home 

1 Educational Bulletin No. 19, State Board of Education. Indian- 
apolis, Indiana, January, 1917. 

[ 106 1 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

A Few of the Records of Champion Boys' and Girls' Club 
Workers for the Season of 1916, Northern and Western States 

corn club 







Yield 


Cost 


Profit 


State 


Name and Address 


per 


per 








Acre 


Acre 


Minn. . . 


Vera H. Johnson, Cokato 


123.96 bu. 


$40.16 


$99.24 


Conn. . . 


Evart Healey, North Woodstock 


112.0 


44.60 


127.75 


N. J. . . 


Neil West, Robbinsville 


106.9 


37.80 


47.89 


Mich. . . 


Floyd Bergey, Kent Co. 


104.25 


32.57 


85.95 


N. Dak. . 


Arthur Granlund, Ransom Co. 


103.33 








Ind. . . . 


Paul Fortmeyer, Ft. Wayne 


101.4 


13.20 


87.70 


N. M. . . 


Robert Strickland, Roswell 


100.0 


13.10 


174.50 



POTATO CLUB 



Wash. . . 


Tommie Day, Mt. Vernon 


612.0 


74.40 


603.84 


Utah . . 


J. Max Marshall, Tocele 


532.0 


69.00 


500.25 


Idaho . . 


Nellie Chase, Crofino 


480.0 


68.00 


593.92 


Idaho . . 


Everett Bentel, Idaho Falls 


480.0 


60.40 


470.00 


Cal. . . . 


Ernest Carlson, Aroata 


463.0 


72.00 


770.80 


Minn. . . 


Ruth Enstrom, Carlton 


441.36 


53.60 


492.80 



HOME CANNING CLUB 



William Earl, Washougal 
Erma Aurey, Phcenix 
Herminie Scholz, Roslindale 



No. OF 
Quarts 
Canned 



1590 
537 
334.5 



Cost 



$85.81 

57.65 

134.40 



Profit 



$391.12 
101.54 



HOME GARDEN CLUB 



Elsie Gordanier 

John B. Gilliland, Watertown 

Thelma Young 



Cost of tV 
Acre 



$25.18 
12.00 
50.24 



Profit from 
& Acre 



$340.31 
252.00 
221.92 



107 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

projects $180,331.93 worth of products at a cost of 
$56,677.44, leaving a net profit of $123,654.49, we do not 
mean to cite this achievement as the most valuable result 
of the work. Such achievement requires the kind of 
exercise of mind and muscle that develops ability to plan 
and execute, that insures better farming and better home 
making in the near future, that prepares for leadership, 
that promotes cooperative endeavor, that brings a reali- 
zation of individual responsibility to the home, the school, 
the community, that strengthens the determination to 
succeed in the face of most adverse circumstances, that 
gives sufficient insight into real life to insure genuine en- 
joyment in helpful service, that produces sterling quali- 
ties of character. Results such as these are invaluable 
and are not capable of measurement in terms of dollars 
and cents." 

The significance of these records becomes more ap- 
parent when the average crop yields of the country at 
large are compared with the results obtained. Thus the 
average acre yield of corn for the United States in 1916 
was 24.4 bushels, or twenty per cent of the amount raised 
by Vern H. Johnson of Minnesota ; and the average potato 
yield was but 80.4 bushels, or thirteen per cent of that 
secured by Tommie Day of Washington. Furthermore, 
the 1916 records of the club workers were by no means 
the high-water mark of achievement reached by the boys 
and girls. Some of the yields have been so astounding 
that they read like tales in a story book. In the contest 
of 1912, for example, two Alabama boys, J. P. Deach of 
Union Grove and Willie Atchison of McCalla, raised 
196.27 bushels and 197.25 bushels of corn respectively; 
Carious Reddock of Summerland, Mississippi, raised 
206.60 bushels; and Ernest Joyce of South Carolina 
raised a total of 207.16 bushels per acre. Even these 

[ 108] 



THE RURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

remarkable yields were eclipsed by the far-famed Jerry 
Moore of South Carolina, who harvested a total of 228 
bushels from a single acre. 

But the boys have had no monopoly in carrying off the 
honors of club work. The girls have shown the same 
zeal and enthusiasm and secured equally valuable results. 
In Etowah County, Alabama, little Ruth Anderson at 
the age of fourteen put up 700 cans of tomatoes and 750 
cans of beans, all raised on one tenth of an acre of ground, 
and with the proceeds of her summer's work she fur- 
nished a large share of the money spent in remodeling 
the family home into an attractive bungalow. The girls 
of the same county have in four years put up 172,555 
cans of fruits and vegetables, valued at $29,400; and 
every club girl in the county now plants a winter garden 
at the close of the summer season to insure the family a 
supply of fresh vegetables during the winter. Another 
successful canning enterprise is reported from Walton 
County, Florida. In a commercial venture calling for 
the delivery of 5000 jars of first-class figs, three club girls 
successfully canned and contributed 1000 jars each to 
this shipment. Hamilton County, Tennessee, is also 
proud of the record of its girls' clubs. During the season 
of 1916, 200 girls engaged in canning work and 280 were 
members of poultry clubs. Through the agency of the 
girls, hundreds of homes have become interested in the 
latest and best scientific methods of home management. 

Those interested in further details of club work may ob- 
tain valuable data from the annual reports of state club 
leaders. The examples here cited have been „ A 

r . Future possi- 

duplicated or surpassed in many other states, biiities of club 
Is not the success already attained worthy of 
our closest study and attention, and what may we reason- 
ably expect of this movement in the future? Suppose 

f 109 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

that the stimulus given to scientific agricultural produc- 
tion in the United States by boys' and girls' club work 
should increase our present annual production of more 
than fifteen billion dollars a year by just one per cent ? l 
That would mean an addition of one hundred and fifty 
million dollars annually to our national wealth ! Such a 
result is not only possible but quite probable, and it may 
be that an increase of even five to ten per cent is not an 
unreasonable expectation when the boys and girls now 
engaged in club work shall have grown to manhood and 
womanhood and are independent farmers themselves. 
Through scientific methods of farming like those pursued 
by the club workers, the soil fertility on the average farm 
may easily be doubled, and this will naturally increase 
the total production still more. 

Furthermore, what is to hinder us from giving this sort 
of agricultural training to every country boy and girl in 
the near future instead of the mere handful now engaged 
in club work? Nothing whatever, when the country 
schools have been reorganized and readjusted. Indeed, 
the logical and reasonable outcome of the new rural edu- 
cation which the consolidated school will furnish, must 
inevitably be a large increase in crop production and soil 
fertility. Our boys' and girls' clubs have made an excel- 
lent beginning in it, with school facilities as they are; 
yet few people can now fully grasp the possibilities that 
are wrapped up in the better training of our coming rural 
schools. 

1 See the 1916 Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, page 695. The 
value of all farm products for 1916 was placed at $13,448,310,509, and 
for 1917 it easily exceeded the $15,000,000,000 mark. 



[ no] 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

The Rural Community and Its Needs 

SOME one has said that "the community is defined by 
the team haul " ; x but neither a political nor a geograph- 
ical subdivision of county or state is a commu- w^ is a 
nity. Not even the inhabitants of a township, community? 
village, trading district, etc., when taken collectively, form 
a true community. It is only when such people act to- 
gether as a unit for common purposes and when they have 
acquired the habit of thus working together for common 
ends that the term " community " fitly expresses this rela- 
tionship. The name is also loosely applied by some people 
to churches, schools, clubs, and the like. They are not 
communities but institutions, devices, and means to an 
end — frameworks, or community centers, around which 
real communities may be built. In the final analysis a 
community means the federation of all the forces and re- 
sources of a convenient territory to carry out a common 
program of work for the benefit of all. Of suitable com- 
munity framework there is no lack in the country districts 
of the United States, but of real communities there is still 
a great dearth. The rural districts need community 
builders. 

The sovereigns of a democracy are its people — not a 
privileged governing class of them, but all the people. In 
order to govern themselves well, they must be Educating the 
educated to the highest point of efficiency community 
which their resources will permit; but while we freely 
grant this in theory, in practice we fall far short of this 
ideal. The besetting sin of a democracy is that the people 
fail to be in earnest, to be persistent, to think things 

1 Warren H. Wilson, The Evolution of the Country Community, 
Chapter XII. 

[ HI 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

through for themselves. As a people we depend upon 
others to do our thinking for us. Pupils think in terms 
of their teachers ; the individual follows his party leader ; 
the laborer accepts the tenets of the professional agitator ; 
and so on, ad infinitum. The only cure for this evil is 
thorough, comprehensive, and universal training for all. 
Life has become so complex and so exacting in its demands 
that formal study of some kind should be kept up through- 
out by young and old. 

With children the formal training naturally centers in 
the school, but even with them a large share of their edu- 
cation is the product of experiences outside the schoolroom. 
With adults the case is different. They must seek addi- 
tional training in their usual vocations, in community 
service, and in school extension work. Their education 
is completed in the school of life, in which everybody should 
matriculate. When old and young have settled down to 
a systematic, progressive plan of life for all, we may term 
it "the community at school." It is the ideal way of 
rounding out a people's education and is essential to make 
a democracy efficient. Such a program should primarily 
concern itself with our life work, our duty to country and 
our duty to God. For a farmer it means agriculture in 
all its relationships — physical, moral, aesthetic, and 
spiritual. 

Be it ever so humble, 
There's no place like home. 

In its significance here, as the abiding place of man's do- 
mestic affections, the home is the nation's greatest material 
Living on asset. A spot conducive to a happy, peaceful 

the land family life and suitable as a permanent abode 

of contented people may become a real home ; none other 
can. Upon the character and permanency of the home and 

[ 112] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

the purity of the family life within, rest the strength and 
stability of the state. Clean homes, rooted to the soil, are of 
infinitely greater value than battlements and forts, armies 
and navies. One of the principal duties of a powerful agri- 
cultural nation like ours should be the establishment of 
permanent rural homes for the greatest possible number 
of its citizens. To this end both our laws and a clear-cut 
national policy should protect us against land monopoly 
by individuals or corporations and should conserve the 
soil for actual home builders of the highest type. That 
land speculation, monopoly, and unreasonable farm values 
tend to supplant resident freeholders by a class of nomadic 
tenants has already been pointed out in Chapter II. Let 
those who think but lightly of these evils or who regard 
the question of land ownership as of no special significance, 
cast just one look at the unhappy, turbulent mob of 
Russia's landless, ignorant peasants and then at its opu- 
lent landed aristocracy and the most thoughtless observer 
will at once have to concede that "the land problem" of 
a country is a question of the first magnitude. 

If certain localities have been disappointed and surprised 
at the superficial patriotism displayed by some of their 
citizens, must they not feel that they have 
simply been reaping what they have so care- 
lessly sown? Can a people be primarily occupied with 
the thought of "raising more hogs, to get more money, to 
buy more land, to raise more corn, to feed more hogs, 
etc.," and in the monotonous round of duties from starlight 
to starlight for the purpose of material gain neglect the 
nobler aims of life, without impairing the ideals of citizen- 
ship? If the mind is chiefly occupied with larger crop 
production, mortgage lifting, acquisition of more land, and 
other materialistic aims, and if the whole family is con- 
tinually reminded of cheerless, back-breaking, and un- 

[ 113] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

remitting toil, country life becomes but a mockery and a 
hollow existence in spite of financial prosperity. 

Where human rights receive scant attention and huge, 
expensive barns tower beside dingy homes devoid of every 
comfort and convenience, — mere places to eat and sleep, 
— there is something wrong with the owners. When farm- 
steads are simply conglomerations of unsightly buildings, 
without a trace of beauty, plan, or proportion, it is a mute 
testimony to the barren minds and hearts of the farmers. 
If childhood is robbed of its priceless joy of play and recrea- 
tion, and boys and girls are needlessly taken out of school 
to perform the manual labor of an adult the very moment 
they are beyond the reach of the state's compulsory edu- 
cation laws, those who commit this crime scarcely deserve 
the sacred name of father or mother. Human burden 
bearers may, under the conditions described, rear a genera- 
tion of honest, dull, and plodding toilers ; but family life 
worthy of a great liberty-loving and inspired people cannot 
thrive in such an atmosphere. Learning how to live is a 
pressing problem in many a rural community today. Its 
solution depends upon a clear understanding of the follow- 
ing important factors and many minor ones : (1) better 
homes and household conveniences, (2) beautifying the 
countryside, (3) opportunities for wholesome play and 
recreation, (4) a new spiritual vision, (5) better sanitation 
and health, and (6) community cooperation. The whole 
problem may be expressed in one comprehensive term — 
community building. 

The notion that the farm home must forego the comforts 

and conveniences of a city home is fast being dispelled. 

A few country dwellings may now be found 

The farmhouse . J . ?,,,,, , 

m every progressive neighborhood, where the 
people enjoy nearly all the facilities of an up-to-date city 
residence. Basements are fitted up with furnaces, fuel 
f 114 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

rooms, electric light plants, laundry rooms, vegetable 
cellars, etc. An inexpensive septic tank connected with 
a drain tile makes indoor toilets possible. A neighboring 
spring, a force pump, or a windmill with supply tank de- 
livers an abundance of good water to any part of the house 
or farmstead. The home is not only well lighted but 
properly ventilated, and screened porches keep out the 
pestiferous flies and offer a cool retreat on hot summer 
days. In addition to the kitchen, dining room, sitting room, 
bathroom, and bedrooms, the house frequently contains a 
playroom for the children, an office for the farmer, and a 
sewing room for the wife and daughters. All of these 
are tastefully furnished and decorated, and the entire 
home has an atmosphere of comfort and of intelligent 
management. 

Above all, the kitchen is now receiving deserved atten- 
tion in order to lighten the burdens of the housewife. It 
has beyond question been the most neglected factor in the 
country home and has, in the past, caused much needless 
suffering, discontent, and hardship for the women folks. 
A small engine or motor to run a cream separator, washing 
machine, vacuum cleaner, or other household appliances 
costs but little in comparison with the load which it takes 
from the housewife's shoulders, and there is as much justi- 
fication for this improvement as there is for machinery 
used in pumping, plowing, feed grinding, grain elevating, 
etc. 

With these improvements and in such an environment 
farm life loses much of its former drudgery ; and leisure 
for reading, music, and the cultivation of aesthetic tastes 
dispels the ignorance and monotony of former days. 
Among the recent conveniences and civilizing factors of 
rural life should also be mentioned the telephone, auto- 
mobile, and good roads. 

f 115 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

With physical aids like these just enumerated, and with 
educational and spiritual needs wisely supplied, rural life 
may speedily be revolutionized. It is equally certain, 
however, that unless better conditions become more general 
in the country than they now are, the best farmers will 
continue to move to the city and the drain on rural social 
life will not be abated. 

Systematic, concerted effort to beautify the farm homes 
and the country community is still the exception in vast 
Beautifying sections of rural America, and this failure is 
the countryside no t only regrettable but hardly short of crimi- 
nal. Hard-headed, callous men have laid out farmsteads 
without thought of order, beauty, plan, or purpose. Paint 
is applied to buildings for the sole purpose of preserving 
the wood. Barns, surrounded by unsightly straw and 
manure piles, are huddled close to the farmhouse in reckless 
defiance of sanitation or decency of appearance. Yards, 
covered with weeds and littered with machinery, serve as 
feeding grounds for pigs, calves, and chickens. Fences, 
bridges, groves, and outbuildings bear the stamp of eco- 
nomic purposes only. Church and school lots are looked 
upon as parcels of ground on which to erect cheap buildings 
where public servants at low salaries may be stationed to 
minister to the educational and spiritual welfare of the 
neighborhood; and even some cemeteries have the ap- 
pearance of mere burying places for dead bodies ! The 
picture is not overdrawn, but is a sad reality in too many 
rural districts. Some people attempt to justify these 
conditions by pleading poverty or the lack of time for any- 
thing but the most essential farm labor, but the plea is 
specious, to say the least. 

Granting that a farmer's first consideration is rigid 
economy, are the conditions just enumerated the natural 
corollary of this economy ? Does it cost him any money 

[ 116 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

to plan his farmstead for both service and beauty ? Is it 
cheaper to build a barn in close proximity to the house 
than to build it at a safe and reasonable distance ? Why 
not have a pleasing color scheme for the farm buildings, 
instead of a single dull color applied to all of them ? Does 
the question of expense enter seriously into the trimming 
of fence posts, groves, orchards, and lanes? Has the 
saving of time or money anything to do with piling straw 
or manure close to the home instead of providing a proper 
place for them back of the barns and sheds? Are there 
not in the life of the busiest farmer a few spare moments 
each day or week to care for a flower bed, run a lawn 
mower, plant some ornamental shrubs, and cultivate a 
garden and a small orchard ? The experience of hundreds 
of families who under the most adverse circumstances and 
financial stress have converted neglected and dilapidated 
farmsteads into attractive and prosperous homes is ample 
proof that whole communities could do likewise if the 
farmers had but the right vision and knew the intrinsic 
value of a beautiful environment. We need a country- 
wide campaign for beautifying the rural communities, 
demanding the active support of every rural organization. 
The grand opportunity of the consolidated school for this 
service has been explained in Chapter V. 

In the childhood days of our grandparents, rural com- 
munities looked forward to their husking bees, barn 
raisings, log rollings, spelling bees, singing pi ay and 
schools, and "literaries" as annual or seasonal recreation 
events of great importance. They satisfied the social 
instincts and furnished a pleasing variety of neighborhood 
amusement and recreation ; but in the highly individual- 
istic rural life of the twentieth century, this wholesome 
influence of the better class of rural play and recreation 
has almost entirely disappeared. What has survived in 

[ 117] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

the form of the country dance, baseball game, horse racing, 
and the like is sadly contaminated and brought into dis- 
repute by a certain rough element given to profanity, 
carousing, or gambling. For the more respectable country 
folks, therefore, who avoid gatherings of this kind, rural 
sport has almost ceased to exist. Yet thoughtful people 
are convinced that if the farming community is to retain 
its young men and women, organized play and recreation 
must be restored and its influence extended far beyond 
its former scope. 

In common with most animals, the young of the human 
species play as readily as they eat and drink. The surest 
way to make an animal vicious is to shut it up while young 
and suppress its instinct for play. Similarly, personal 
vice, stupidity, abnormal development, and social mal- 
adjustment result if children's play is curtailed or neg- 
lected. The assumption that work or "chores" can be 
substituted for play without injury to a child's life or 
character is as false and dangerous as it is common in 
thousands of rural communities. 

Because of its isolation, individualism, and independ- 
ence, country life has greater need of organized play and 
recreation than city life. Proof of the old 

Special need . 

of play and saying that "All work and no play makes 
recreation in j ac k a ^11 boy" is so abundant that one 

rural districts . 

wonders why the most short-sighted parent 
cannot learn the simple lesson. The magnificent parks 
and playgrounds, free public baths, extensive recreation 
centers, and numerous clubs and athletic associations in 
the cities all testify to the fact that we are beginning to 
understand the importance of organized play and recrea- 
tion. It is also significant that industrial corporations 
and employers of large numbers of men and women are 
annually spending enormous sums for wholesome amuse- 
[ 118 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

ment, recreation, and improvement of the leisure hours 
of their employees. Such movements are usually not 
prompted by a spirit of generosity or charity on the part 
of the employer, but rest upon the broad fundamental 
principle that industrial or mental efficiency and a rational 
standard of living demand a reasonable expenditure of 
time and money on play and recreation for young and old. 
Failure to provide this in the case of children or youth is 
almost fatal to normal development and good citizenship. 
Admitting that the principle applies to people every- 
where, it will not be hard to understand that certain ob- 
stacles existing in the country make it difficult of applica- 
tion in rural districts. People do not gather in large 
crowds unless called together for specific purposes, and 
unless good leaders are at hand in such meetings, no play 
or organized amusements will result even then. School 
districts have, until lately, been too small to get enough 
children of corresponding ages together for interesting 
games and sports; and unless real community centers 
exist where the whole neighborhood is accustomed to 
assemble, intimate acquaintance is lacking to draw out the 
play spirit and overcome the natural reserve of rural folks. 

The question is, therefore, What shall the program be 
and how shall it be carried out ? In the first place, it must 
be comprehensive and include the entire community — 
old and young, rich and poor, landlord and laborer, men 
and women, boys and girls. In the second place, it must 
be organized community effort. There must be competent 
leadership and enthusiasm of numbers ; it must be seasonal 
and fit local conditions; and there must be spontaneity 
and variety. 

Fortunately the countryside is not barren of natural 
facilities for organized play. It has an abundance of 
pleasant groves, natural scenery, and suitable grounds for 

f 119 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

outdoor exercise. There is small need of parks, because 
extensive playgrounds for the entire community can easily 
„ ,,.,.. be laid out on the consolidated school grounds 

Rural facilities ° 

or amuse- or about the rural church or other center. 
ments There are no low-grade picture shows and 

theaters, poolrooms, or other questionable public places 
to pervert the taste for wholesome sports and pastimes ; 
and the danger of commercializing sports and amusements 
is more remote in the country than in the city. The con- 
solidated school with its ideal central location and ample 
playgrounds has a golden opportunity for the regenera- 
tion of rural play and recreation ; and whether they are 
natural-born or trained leaders in this field, the principal 
of the school and his teachers should improve every op- 
portunity for organizing the whole community to this end. 
If the rural pastor, Sunday School teachers, county 
Y. M. C. A. workers, grange and farmers' club leaders, 
will join hands with the teachers in this worthy endeavor, 
success is sure to crown their efforts. 

Some of the most worth-while and suitable country 
amusements are the following : (1) the common folk and 
children's games at school, led and supervised by the 
teachers; (2) baseball, basket ball, volley ball, track 
work, and similar games of skill and competition for the 
young folks ; (3) play festivals, pageants, picnics, harvest 
home, community singing, band and orchestra practices, 
debating and literary societies. 

Some will naturally ask, When and how shall people 
find time for such a program of amusements? Shall 
Time for Sunday be given over to this purpose? No, 

recreation it would be most unfortunate if the farmer's 

spiritual life were robbed of its quiet religious practices and 
Sabbath desecration became rampant on the plea that 
there is no time for play on week days. If stores, factories, 

[ 120 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

public offices, and other places of business can close their 
respective places of business for a half holiday on Saturday- 
afternoon, would it be an unheard-of crime to suspend 
work on the farm also ? Suppose that two or three hours 
on Saturday afternoon, or any other convenient day of the 
week agreeable to the majority, were set aside for com- 
munity recreation and all joined in the custom? Could 
it not be done without detriment to workers and employers, 
except during the busiest seasons, perhaps ? I know that 
the unthinking will at once condemn the suggestion as 
revolutionary and alarming and may denounce it as a 
reckless waste of time and energy ; but would it be ? May 
not the thought of such a pleasant time which is awaiting 
young and old each week so stimulate the workers that 
they will actually accomplish as much and do even better 
work in the remaining days and hours of the week ? This 
is no idle dream ; the plan has been tested out in certain 
progressive and intelligent communities with this very 
surprising and happy result. Indeed, the time may not 
be far distant when all rural communities will take this 
high moral ground and position and will place happiness 
and contentment above ceaseless toil, money making, and 
dreary, monotonous living. 

It may also come to pass that the length of the rural 
working day will be reduced by reason of still more efficient 
labor-saving machinery and that a few hours may be de- 
voted to play and recreation during the long evenings of 
spring and summer. That during the lull of farm work 
in the winter season there is plenty of time for literary 
programs, community singing, debates, plays, and the 
like, no one will deny. It needs but the central school, a 
community building, neighborhood church, or other social 
center to accommodate the crowd, and all these blessings 
may be enjoyed. Verily, there are impending changes in 

[ 121 J 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

the social life of a community of which people little 
dreamed a few years ago. Speed the day when they shall 
be general the country over ! 

"The country church is married to the community; 
that which affects the one affects the other also. If the 
The community community is impoverished the church wears 
and the church a pinched appearance. If the community is 
prosperous, the church under normal conditions shows 
growth and self-respect." 1 While this is true in general, 
the status of the rural church today in a great many com- 
munities is even more grave than the quotation indicates. 
The swift economic changes in the country have not alone 
left the rural church decadent, but have almost eliminated 
it in some of the most fertile agricultural sections. More 
than 1700 country churches have in late years been closed 
in the rich state of Illinois alone, and in hundreds of other 
churches there is but an occasional service and a marked 
decline in church membership. Similar conditions prevail 
in other wealthy agricultural states, and a recent survey 
of Lane County, Oregon, revealed that after fifty-four 
years of church organization in the county only 13.1 per 
cent of the country people were church members, while 
86.9 per cent claimed no church affiliation whatever ! 
Clearly there is something out of joint in the religious life 
of a farming community where such conditions prevail, 
and there must be a regeneration of the church or the 
country will lose its Christian character. i 

The decline of the country church and the problem of 
reorganization now confronting it are caused by the same 
External economic and social changes that affected the 

causes of the rural school, as outlined in Chapter II. The 
Pioneer was at first satisfied with an occasional 
visit from the primitive, itinerant minister ; and even later, 

1 Warren H. Wilson, The Church in the Open Country. 
[ 122 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

preaching services were usually conducted in the settlers' 
homes and but few country churches erected. During 
the period of the Land Farmer the case was different. 
These ardent church supporters, but independent spirits 
and fiery sectarian rivals, multiplied congregations and 
dotted the country with churches, many of which were too 
weak from the beginning to become financially independent 
and flourishing. Then, when the Land Speculator arrived 
on the scene and raised havoc with existing social and 
economic conditions, the congregations were disrupted 
and the few "former pillars of the church'' who remained 
were gradually forced to give up the fight to support the 
declining churches. One after another they closed their 
doors or the congregations had to be satisfied with an 
occasional preaching service conducted by the minister 
from a neighboring village. The problem has become still 
more acute in communities where a mixed population of 
foreign birth, not yet Americanized, succeeded the land 
farmers or where a tenant body with exceptionally low 
standards of life has displaced the owners. The com- 
munity spirit will have to be greatly strengthened before 
the people will unite in generous and harmonious support 
of a neighborhood church. 

The decline of the country church is partly due to in- 
ternal causes, and its ministers and administrators must 
shoulder some of the blame. The type of causes within 
clergyman who dealt with the intensively in- the church 
dividualistic settler of the preceding generation had to 
appeal to the emotions of his hearers and exalt creed and 
sectarian doctrine. With them, periodic revivals accom- 
panied by waves of excitement, to be followed by periods 
of backsliding and more revivals, were the rule; and a 
strong personal gospel calculated to stir the emotions of 
the individual was the preacher's only avenue of approach 

[ 123 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

to gain converts and build up congregations. Such a 
gospel has lost its drawing power with the modern farmer. 
Through economic pressure he has been forced to resort 
to scientific farming and seek safety in social and financial 
organization. In other words, he must become a com- 
munity builder and must learn the lesson of cooperation 
or give up the struggle. People in such a frame of mind 
demand a socialized church whose minister must under- 
stand and practice community cooperation and be an 
intelligent judge and guide in temporal as well as spiritual 
affairs. If aged and worn-out ministers are, under these 
conditions, sent into the rural districts to preach in their 
declining years, failure is the logical result. No matter 
how earnest such men may be, they cannot grasp the spirit 
of the new community and it is self-evident that they 
cannot infuse new life into a dying church. 

The call for a new country church and a new type of 
minister is just as insistent as the call for a new kind of 
The modem school and a new type of teacher. It cannot 
rural minister b e ignored. The appeal is for young men of 
energy and ability, specially fitted for their peculiar task. 
College training, refinement, and broad culture are just 
as essential in the rural field as in the city field; but in 
addition the country ministers must be students of rural 
economics, good organizers, and, above all, they must be 
in sympathy with rural life. They must be ready to do 
teamwork with the country teachers, county Y. M. C. A. 
workers, and other rural organizers to bring about har- 
monious cooperation and a proper social and educational 
as well as religious atmosphere. Even then their efforts 
may not be crowned with success unless they are able to 
federate the various religious forces and to prevail upon 
the people to tolerate no more churches than the commu- 
nity can support without burdening itself, 

[ 124 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

Church union of the various denominations may yet be 
a long way off in the centers of population, but, unless 
practical federation of religious forces can be effected in 
rural districts, the country church is destined to sink lower 
still in the estimation of the people. It is not for the lay- 
man to say just how the country church is to be regener- 
ated. That task must fall upon the wisest and best of 
its own leaders. It seems, however, to an interested and 
impartial observer that the time has come when sectarian 
rivalry between the country churches must be reduced to 
the minimum or the influence of the church will approach 
the vanishing point. But Christianity is too vital to man- 
kind to waste its strength in dogma, creed, sectarianism, 
and denominationalism ; and it is too broad and deep and 
holy to be sacrificed in any community. No greater 
calamity could befall the country districts than to lose 
their churches and their Christian character because of 
denominational strife or for lack of insight into a new 
condition. A churchless, Godless rural community is as 
barren as a desert, no matter what its material prosperity 
may be. 

At Brooklyn Center in Hennepin County, Minnesota, 
there was dedicated in January, 1917, a country church 
worthy of its mission and reflecting credit . „ 

" ° A glimpse of 

upon the people for miles around. It is an the new rural 
edifice costing $20,000, located in the open church 
country, and its beautiful environment and well-kept 
grounds, on which is located a new five-thousand-dollar 
parsonage, rival those of many prosperous city churches. 
The building itself is of the so-called institutional type. 
Its commodious auditorium seats 350 people in perfect 
comfort and by crowding will accommodate a great many 
more. It has a separate Sunday School room with nu- 
merous classrooms for the various departments, a pastor's 

[ 125 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

study, and a basement fully equipped for community 
service. 

Although the church affiliates with the Methodist 
Episcopal denomination, it is to all intents and purposes 
a true community church. It has enjoyed the loyal sup- 
port of the entire community without regard to sectarian 
lines and was clear of debt on dedication day. The Rev. 
Mr. Walker, the efficient pastor of the church, is an en- 
thusiastic disciple of the big country life movement and a 
warm advocate of the country community. From 125 to 
175 people attend church services on Sunday mornings, 
and a hundred or more return for the evening meeting. 
On special occasions the congregation has numbered as 
high as 470 people. A complete Sunday School has an 
enrollment of 140. The following auxiliary organizations 
hold regular weekly meetings and are in a flourishing con- 
dition : Ladies' Aid Society, Junior League, Young 
People's Club, and Prayer Meeting. In addition to these 
there is a wide-awake Farmers' Club — a true Get-to- 
gether Club — which holds its meetings at the church. 
It supports a full course of lectures and entertainments 
and in its regular meetings has local literary programs in 
connection with the discussion of farm problems. The 
attendance at the club meetings runs as high as 150. 

Great stress is laid upon social service, and the com- 
munity program provides suitable meetings for young and 
old. There is an abundance of games, plenty of good music, 
and outdoor sports in season. Add to this sort of rural 
church a modern rural school to educate the boys and girls, 
and all fear of an exodus to the city will disappear. 

A similar church near Plainfield, Du Page County, 
Illinois, has gained national prominence through the re- 
markable work of its pastor, the Rev. Matthew B. McNutt. 
When this young man began his labors in the community, 

f 126 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

fresh from college and without experience in the rural field, 
he found a congregation more dead than alive in religious 
matters, but in ten years of untiring ministry he trans- 
formed the whole community. The old dilapidated 
meeting house was replaced by a modern community 
church which has become the center of rural life in the 
neighborhood. In competition with the neighboring town 
attractions, — the grange, social clubs of different kinds, 
and other organizations, — it has more than held its own 
as the real mainspring of the community life. Former 
dissension and division have disappeared ; the country is 
prosperous and happy; and the most kindly spirit 
pervades the neighborhood. 

At Quaker Hill in New York is another example of a 
community church which has united a Christian neigh- 
borhood of many denominations into one brotherhood, 
worshiping God at a common shrine, as sincere and in- 
telligent brethren ought to do. 

In places like these the leaven of the modern spirit of 
Christian rural people is evolving a better and nobler 
Christian rural life that must some day pervade the farm- 
ing communities of America if we shall become truly 
worthy of that God-given freedom of which we talk a great 
deal but which we are living imperfectly in city or country. 

The essence of public health work is to do two important 
things by means of modern scientific methods — promote 
the health of individuals and prevent disease ; Rural health 
but until recent years we could hardly lay work 
claim to real, effective health work. With the exception 
of some progressive cities, we have actually been living in 
a state of diluted barbarism so far as public sanitation 
and hygiene are concerned, and the majority of the rural 
communities have not yet emerged from that state. 

People have for generations regarded the ravages of 

f 127 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

common diseases like tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever, 
typhoid, hookworm, diphtheria, and the like, as necessary 
evils that must be borne and cannot be avoided or con- 
trolled. Indeed, some parents go so far in their ignorance 
of the laws of health that they will deliberately expose 
their children to communicable diseases like measles, 
mumps, and whooping cough — commonly called the ills 
of childhood — in order that they may "catch" the 
diseases when young ! The practice often brings needless 
suffering upon innocent children who might otherwise 
pass through life unscathed by these foes of mankind. 

Even our forefathers learned that by concerted action 
the country could be cleared of bears, wolves, foxes, pan- 
thers, and other vermin that destroyed and ravaged their 
flocks. These nuisances were large enough to be readily 
seen, and men organized neighborhood hunts and drives 
to exterminate the pests ; but, strange to say, in our en- 
lightened age, people still fail to grasp the idea that effec- 
tive warfare may be waged against flies and mosquitoes, 
or against the germs of tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia, 
and other diseases, whose ravages are a thousand times 
more dangerous and deadly than those of all the wild 
beasts of the forest combined. 

The truth about diseases has been further obscured by 
an older public health theory which sought the sources of 
disease in man's environment and fulminated against 
crowded hovels, garbage cans, damp cellars, dirty clothes, 
defective plumbing, stagnant pools, dust, smoke, and the 
bodies of dead animals as breeders of disease. The public 
reasoned, therefore, that the city slums with their crowds 
and filth were the logical home and source of human 
diseases and that the clean homes of the well-to-do city 
dwellers were practically immune from serious epidemics 
because of the environment. By the same token, it was 

[ 128 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

asserted that people on the farm had less to fear from 
communicable diseases because of the abundance of fresh 
air, out-of-door life, freedom from smoke, and scattered 
population, and that the country was a much more health- 
ful place in which to live than the city. 

Thanks to the modern health expert, bacteriologist, 
and physician, the older theories of public health work 
have now been largely exploded and facts The new public 
have taken the place of fiction. Modern health 
sanitation concentrates its efforts for the eradication of 
infectious diseases on the following all-important points : 
(1) the infected individual, (2) the transmission of 
diseases from persons known to be infected, and (3) the 
ordinary routes or methods by which such diseases are 
transmitted. In this program, the general environment 
of people also has its part, but it is of secondary impor- 
tance instead of primary. Thus garbage cans, damp 
cellars, dirt, dust, and foul air are only possible carriers 
of disease germs that must come from an infected indi- 
vidual. Naturally, then, the first step is to discover the 
individual who is affected and prevent the dissemination 
of the disease from that primary source. Thus if in the 
case of tuberculosis, which is by far "the greatest single 
man killer in the world," as some one has said, we could 
locate the seriously infected persons and prevent the trans- 
mission of the disease to other non-infected persons, this 
insidious foe would soon be eliminated entirely. 

It is now a well-established fact, according to good 
medical authority, that most germs like those which cause 
tuberculosis, typhoid, and other diseases multiply and 
thrive best in the body of the host and rarely outside of it. 
When once discharged from that host, they soon die or 
remain dangerous for a brief time only. This is a funda- 
mentally important factor in disease control. Of like 

f 129 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

importance also is the fact that the usual and most direct 
routes by which the germs are transmitted to well persons 
are food, flies, water, and milk supplies. When the two 
principal factors — infected individuals and the common 
routes of infection — can be fully controlled, and not until 
then, may we hope to rid mankind of these terrible enemies. 

Bearing in mind these important facts, it is easy to see 
why modern methods of preventing the spread of diseases 
have done so much to alleviate human suffering and reduce 
the number of victims. Evidently, if infected persons 
can be prevented from contaminating the food and water 
supply, and if flies can be kept from the infected excretions 
and thus prevented from carrying the germs to the food 
supply of healthy persons or directly to non-infected in- 
dividuals, the danger of spreading the disease is almost 
eliminated. The fly menace may therefore be greatly 
reduced if human excretions from infected individuals can 
be so screened from the flies as to prevent contact or 
transmission. It becomes self-evident further that dirt, 
garbage, air, stagnant water, and other supposed sources 
of disease are harmless, per se, if infection from some 
human source is kept from them. Moreover, they will 
not long remain dangerous when infected unless they are 
repeatedly contaminated. 

Exact scientific knowledge of diseases, obtained by careful 
and tireless research, has paved the way for modern methods 
Comparison of in public health. The larger cities, with their 
heamicond^ 1 well-organized health departments, have not 
tions been slow in adopting at least some of the new 

and effective methods of health control. Food inspection at 
the central markets, protection of the city water supply 
against contamination at the source, inspection of dairies 
and the workmen employed in them, are relatively easy tasks 
as compared with the supervision of hundreds and thou- 

f 130 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

sands of sources of food and water supply in the country. 
Therefore, professional health work in the cities has so far 
outstripped professional health work in the country that 
in spite of slums and congested population, human diseases 
in the aggregate find more victims in the country than in 
the city. Health surveys made in recent years show un- 
mistakably that the percentage of rural children suffering 
from bodily ills is twice or three times as large as the per- 
centage of city children. Professor Woofter in a late work 
quotes the following statistics concerning this question : l 

Figures Compiled from Health Examinations of Children in 
Twenty-five American Cities and of Rural School Children in 
Five American States 



Health Defects in Children 


Rural Children 


City Children 


Examined 


Per Cent 


Per Cent 


1. Defective teeth 


49.9 


16.4 


2. Enlarged tonsils 


30.0 


8.8 




21.5 
21.0 


8.5 


4. Eye defects 


5.1 




11.1 
6.4 


18.6 


6. Enlarged glands 


2.7 


7. Ear defects 


4.8 


1.0 


8. Spinal curvatures 


3.5 


1.8 


9. Malnutrition 


2.0 


1.8 


10. Anaemia 


1.7 


1.5 


11. Skin diseases 


1.1 


1.9 


12. Mental defects 


0.8 


0.2 


13. Heart defects 


0.8 


0.3 



That the physique of young men from the country is 
also below that of young men from the city is the testimony 
of Dr. L. J. Cooke, gymnasium director of the University 
of Minnesota, who drew his conclusions from painstaking 
investigation of the physical conditions of both classes of 
men when entering the university. Mr. Cooke's own 
statement is : "In the boys from the farm the muscles of 
the arms and shoulders are usually well developed, while 

1 Thomas Woofter, Teaching in the Rural Schools. 

\ 131 1 



aURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

nearly every other part of the physical organism falls below 
the general average. The city youth, who usually has 
had more or less physical training, possesses a much better 
physique." 

These are serious but indisputable indictments of rural 
health conditions, and it is time that the country should 
awake to the gravity of the situation. Shall 
we shrink from doing our duty by country 
children and the country home in the matter of public 
health simply because it is expensive to carry out a com- 
plete and effective nation-wide health program? If 
Dr. Hoag is correct in saying that "the mortality in the 
United States from measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, 
and diphtheria amounts every year to more than twice the 
loss of life on the field of Gettysburg," 1 why should we 
hesitate long to pay the comparatively small price of 
vanquishing these enemies instead of making the country 
mother the sole health department to fight the foes single- 
handed or with a few traditional household remedies? 

Hundreds of cities have found it to be a good investment 
to appoint capable physicians as health supervisors in their 
public schools, either on full time or part time duty, and 
to employ school nurses to follow up the work of the phy- 
sicians. The need of employing such medical inspectors 
and school nurses in the rural schools is even greater than 
in the city schools, and the country must not make the 
flimsy objection that their schools are too small and scat- 
tered for health supervision. Surely the plea loses its 
force when applied to consolidated schools, because they 
can be reached easily and little time needs to be lost in 
traveling from one school to another in a regular circuit 
of a county or district. There should be a permanent 
nurse for the rural schools in every county. 

1 Hoag and Terman, Health Work in the Schools. 
[ 132 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

RURAL LIFE ORGANIZATIONS 

The great Trinity of Rural Life are the country home, 
the country church, and the country school. They 
originated and developed in the order named, Home, church, 
and their intimate relationship, interdepend- and sch ° o1 
ence, and necessary readjustments have been treated at 
some length in the preceding chapter. Supplementing 
these, there are various other agencies and minor rural 
organizations which deserve some attention from every 
one interested in country life and the country community 
and without which a discussion of rural education in a 
broad sense would be incomplete. They may be classified 
as follows, according to their principal aims and purposes : 

1. Young People's Organizations 

2. Economic, Social, and Educational Organizations 

3. Agricultural Improvement Associations 

4. Political Organizations 

5. Farm Women's Organizations 

Further examination reveals that some of these are state 
wide and national in character, while others are principally 
local. Still others deal with so many phases of life that 
it is difficult to assign them to any one of these classes. 
All have the same general aim, however, that of making 
better men and women out of the country people and of 
creating a better country life. 

While we had an abundance of cheap, fertile farm lands 
and settlers could abandon worn-out farms for new and 
virgin soil, the old style of agriculture and The demand 
non-scientific farming could flourish; but f°r organization 
only the best and easily tilled land is suitable for this kind 
of farming. With the supply of first-class land gone, 
exploitation was doomed ; soil fertility had to be restored 
to worn-out farms ; and second and third rate lands, which 

F 133 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

were formerly passed by, had to be brought under cultiva- 
tion in competition with more favored agricultural lands. 
Organization, therefore, became highly desirable for all 
farmers in order to study and practice scientific farming 
more effectively; and for the small farmer it became an 
absolute necessity to unite with his neighbors for better 
buying and selling facilities in competition with the large 
farmer, or to lose out in the struggle for a bare living. If 
it be true, then, as stated at the beginning of this chapter, 
that the great rural problem is to establish permanent rural 
homes for the greatest possible number of intelligent coun- 
try people, the small farmer must be protected, or must 
protect himself, through cooperation with his fellows. 
This means that rural cooperative enterprises have come 
to stay. 

The best-known young folks' organizations in rural com- 
munities are the literary, musical, and recreational societies 
Young people's usually connected with the public schools, 
organizations Most of them we have already noted and dis- 
cussed. Others, like the county Y. M. C. A. and the 
county Y. W. C. A., are less common but are rapidly 
spreading in the country districts in a number of states. 
They are doing excellent teamwork with country pastors 
and country teachers to establish clean living, clean sports, 
and clean morals and to build up a refined Christian man- 
hood and womanhood. For the younger children some 
adaptations of the Boy Scouts and the Girls' Camp Fire 
movements are sowing the seed of clean and purposeful 
living. 

Of all the social-educational farmers' organizations, the 
Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry as it is officially called, 
easily takes first rank. It was conceived and organized 
in December, 1867, by a Minnesota farmer named O. H. 
Kelly. In 1866 Mr. Kelly was sent to the Southern states 

[ 134 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 



«2 



I 

IttNBA- 
MENTAL 
INSTITU- 
TIONS 



i. Tho rural homo 

2. Tho rural chwccK 

3. The* rural school 



IT 

SUPPLE- 
MENTARY 
ORGANI- 
ZATIONS 



lYoung 
-peopic/s 
orc^nizations 



2. Economic 
sooial^and 
educational 
otganizations 



a. Societies connected 
with public school 
hCourityYM.CA. 

c. County Y.W.C A. 

d. Boy Scouts and Camp 
Fire Girls' clubs, and 
similar activities 

<z. 77te Granae 

h The Farmers' Union 

c. Jkirclor county 'libraries 

d. Minor farmers' organ- 
izations 



3. Agricultural 
improvement A 
and business 
organizations 



4 Political 
organizations 



' a. Farmers ' institutes 
h Short courses 
C Farm demonstrators 
and county agents 

d. Farm hire aus 

e. Voluntary cooperative 
organizations 

f. Farmers' dubs 

' a. TheFarmers'Mliance 
h The Populists 
C. The Non-Partisan 
League 



j .Farm women's 
organizations 



[ 135 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

as an agent of the United States government to investi- 
gate the agricultural conditions after the Civil War and to 
suggest means for improvement. This mis- 
educationai sion and the deplorable conditions he encoun- 
organizations tered in the South gave him a vision for the 

— The Grange • .• • • n t p 

organization or tarmers all over the nation 
for the following purposes : to suppress selfishness, to heal 
the wounds of the recent conflict, to spread the gospel of 
scientific farming and cooperative endeavor, and to foster 
the educational, moral, and social advancement of its mem- 
bers. Men, women, and children above the age of fourteen 
years, who are connected with agriculture, and also rural 
pastors and rural teachers, may become members. 

The growth of the order was phenomenal, and by 1875 
its early success was at the zenith with 21,697 subordinate 
granges and nearly a million members. Soon after that 
date, and especially during the decade from 1880 to 1890, 
the Grange suffered a sharp decline, caused largely by 
designing people who injected wild schemes of financial 
combines, market domination, politics, and other un- 
desirable features into its program. The organization 
has since purged itself of this element and its doctrines 
and is today a mighty and growing power in all parts of 
the country, but its particular stronghold is in the New 
England and Middle Atlantic states. Among other 
national services rendered should be mentioned the un- 
tiring efforts of the order to bring about the enactment 
of such federal legislation as the following : the Interstate 
Commerce Act, establishment of the Department of 
Agriculture, the Oleomargarine Law, Parcels Post, and 
other important acts. The sum total of its influence on 
American husbandry is incalculable. Those who desire 
further information concerning the Grange are referred to 
Carney's Country Life and the Country School. 

\ 136 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

In the Southern states the Grange has found a worthy 
rival in the Farmers' Union, which claims a membership 
of over three millions and is, in point of num- Qther state 
bers, the biggest farmers' organization in the and national 
country. Its principal aims are to promote or ers 
scientific agriculture and improve the economic condition 
of its patrons, but it also lays stress on social and educa- 
tional betterment and pledges its aid to the government 
for the suppression of crime, vice, and immorality. 

Of the minor social orders the Gleaners have been strong 
in Michigan, and the American Society of Equity in 
Indiana, Wisconsin, and adjoining states. 

In order to dispel ignorance, bigotry, and narrowness, 
people must acquire the habit of reading worth-while books 
and periodicals. For this reason, every rural 

... , . Rural libraries 

community should have access to a good 
public library, just as have the people residing in cities 
and towns. Various states have tried to solve this prob- 
lem in different ways ; but it seems that California, under a 
wise and comprehensive library law, has outdistanced all 
other states in the establishing of county libraries. When 
a county of the state votes to establish a library, it must 
automatically provide for a tax on all the assessed prop- 
erty for adequate support; and the county library may 
also be coordinated or consolidated with existing public 
libraries, as local needs may suggest. So much enthu- 
siasm and healthy rivalry between the different counties 
has already been created that every county in the state 
will probably have an excellent, complete library in the 
near future. The county library plan is also found in 
Ohio, Oregon, and other states. In many cases the 
counties establish branch stations at country stores, 
schools, or other convenient local centers, which are sup- 
plied with books from the central library. Results of the 

F 137 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

county plan are gratifying, and the number of borrowers 
is steadily on the increase. 

A great many states are operating successful traveling 
libraries in charge of a state commission, a state board, or 
a division in the extension department. These central 
boards employ state librarians and send out from head- 
quarters collections of twenty-five to fifty books to small 
towns or rural community centers. At these places, local 
librarians receive the shipments, send out the books, keep 
a proper record of them, and lend them free of charge or 
at a nominal fee for a period of two weeks to any re- 
sponsible person in the neighborhood. While traveling 
libraries cannot be classed among the most efficient and 
satisfactory systems, they are doing much good in thinly 
populated communities that are seldom reached by other 
methods. 

Lastly, a number of states are giving annual aid to 
establish libraries, for pupils and adults, in every public 
school of the state. In this way, Minnesota added no 
less than $132,000 worth of library books to its public 
school libraries during the year 1916, and even her one- 
room country schools have libraries containing from 100 
to 300 volumes each. The greatest objection to the sys- 
tem is that too often the selection of books has not been 
in the hands of competent persons and the reading ma- 
terial is not suitable for either children or adults of the 
district. The consolidated school is an ideal center for a 
rural library, and each school should take special pains to 
accumulate a well-selected list of library books for school 
and farm home. At present the American rural com- 
munity is far behind the farming communities of other 
leading countries in its taste for good reading. The lack 
of substantial books in the average farm home is deplor- 
able, and the character of the daily or weekly newspaper 

[ 138 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

commonly found is anything but elevating. Farmers 
have been inclined to look upon the reading habit as a 
luxury reserved for people of leisure and not as a necessity 
for all intelligent people, rich or poor. A reading com- 
munity is invariably a progressive community, and good 
books are the cheapest and best possessions of any 
household. 

Farmers' institutes are a phase of extension work fos- 
tered by the state colleges of agriculture or similar institu- 
tions, and they have played a leading part in FarmerS ' 
the concerted efforts for agricultural improve- institutes 
ment. As soon as these colleges were called upon to 
furnish speakers and lecturers on agricultural and social 
topics at various grange and farmers' meetings, they 
organized speaking bureaus to meet this demand, and out 
of these humble beginnings grew the present institute 
organizations. 

By a judicious combination of college experts and suc- 
cessful practical farmers, efficient corps of institute in- 
structors have gradually been developed in nearly every 
state. A state superintendent of institutes carefully plans 
a series of farmers' meetings, or institutes, at various 
convenient centers, and sends out his workers, under a 
competent conductor, to give practical demonstrations 
and talks on all phases of farming. The institutes are 
usually from one to three days in length, but some of them 
last a week. At first they were somewhat crude, both in 
method and in the subject matter presented, and the 
pioneers had to overcome much skepticism and open hos- 
tility of the farmers to the new ideas in agriculture ; but 
the work has grown mightily, so that today farmers' 
institutes, with an approximate annual attendance of four 
million men and women, are held in the forty-eight states. 

State legislatures have generously added to the funds 

f 139 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

of the agricultural college available for this purpose, until 
now the country spends over half a million dollars a year 
for institute work, covering almost every phase of farm 
life. The institutes have been preachers of righteousness 
and have dignified the calling of the farmer as few other 
organizations have done. They encourage not only 
scientific farming and better business methods, but also 
better homes, better schools, and every line of endeavor 
that makes better men and women out of country people. 

Many communities have taken a step in advance of the 
general farmers' institute and hold a so-called short course 
instead, which lasts a week or two weeks 
courses and instead of a few days. The principal dif- 
reiated exten- ference between the short course and institute 
is that the former is organized mainly for 
regular daily class work in special subjects like the study 
of corn, grain, alfalfa, dairying, etc. In addition to this 
scientific study, a period or two each day may be given 
over to the discussion of general farm problems, as in the 
institutes. Short courses are naturally more systematic, 
specific, thoroughgoing, and progressive than institutes 
and accomplish more definite results. They are rapidly 
gaining in popularity. Regular courses in household 
management and in domestic science for women usually 
form a feature of the short course. 

Closely related to the institutes and short courses are 
Institute Trains, Young People's Institutes, Round-up 
Institutes, Movable Schools, and Harvest Home Meetings. 

A conspicuous example of private agricultural extension 
service is that of the International Harvester Company, 
under the leadership of the distinguished agriculturist, 
Professor P. G. Holden, formerly of Ames, Iowa. The 
company is doing a splendid work for increased crop pro- 
duction and the betterment of rural life. 

f 140 1 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

In the year 1906, the United States government and the 
General Education Board of New York City made a 
united effort to start in the Southern states 

. . Farm demon- 

a system of Cooperative Demonstration strators, county 
Work" by stationing an agricultural expert agents, and 

. farm bureaus 

in a number of counties to visit certain farmers 
at regular intervals and to show them how to raise better 
crops, with the simple tools and equipment at hand, by 
up-to-date methods of farming. Under the wise leader- 
ship and keen insight of Dr. Knapp (see Chapter VII, page 
105) the experiment succeeded beyond all expectations, 
and in two years the work had spread to seven states. The 
demonstrator soon convinced the more intelligent farmers 
that crop rotation, good seed, better cultivation, systematic 
fertilizing, and the raising of more and better live stock 
were all paying propositions ; and by example and precept 
they spread the gospel of better farming all over the South. 

Through the encouragement and financial aid from 
state colleges of agriculture, experiment stations, state 
legislatures, the federal government, and other institutions 
the "farm demonstrator," or "county agent" as he is more 
frequently called in other states, was ten years later found 
in practically every state of the Union; and since our 
country entered the world war, provision has been made 
to place an emergency county agent in every agricultural 
county in the country in order to stimulate food production 
and advance the cause of scientific practical agriculture. 
A tremendous impetus has thus been given to better farm- 
ing, and the county agent or farm expert is likely to be- 
come permanently established in every agricultural county 
of the country. 

To cooperate with the county agent, the farmers of each 
county in some of the states are urged to organize them- 
selves into a farm bureau, whose officers become a sort of 

f 141 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

directorate or advisory council to the agent and direct his 
work. Furthermore, state leaders of county agents, 
employed by the federal government and stationed at 
several state colleges of agriculture, give substantial aid 
and direction to both county agent and farm bureau. In 
this manner a gigantic, nation-wide cooperative extension 
movement has covered the country from ocean to ocean. 

Our national government is not inclined to be paternal 
and has usually been slow to respond to the most insistent 
Voluntary agitation for legislation looking toward rural 

rural orgard- betterment. After years of persistent de- 

zations and . u r 

government mands, in July, 1916, Congress finally passed 
cooperation t h e Federal Land Act, a veritable financial 
Magna Charta for the American farmer. By the terms 
of this act, the United States government joins hands with 
voluntary organizations of farmers to provide adequate 
credit for country people who wish to borrow money for 
legitimate farm needs, on easy terms of payment stretching 
over long series of years and at a low rate of interest. As 
a direct action of the government for the express benefit 
of the farmers, the act has no rival in American history. 

The national government is also encouraging cooperative 
buying, selling, and shipping associations among farmers ; 
and these are annually saving the country people thousands 
of dollars that were formerly lost in excessive profits to 
middlemen or speculators whose sole function is to pass 
on the farm products from producer to consumer. This 
wonderful field of organization is still in its infancy. 

Another line of cooperative endeavor pertains to pure- 
bred live stock, crop improvement, poultry raising, dairy- 
ing, and similar forms of scientific production. The scope 
and diversity of these enterprises call for a degree of 
executive ability, judgment, scientific knowledge, and 
special training unknown to farmers of a generation ago. 

[ 142 ] 



THE RURAL COMMUNITY AND ITS NEEDS 

A host of community farmers' clubs have also sprung 
into existence in recent years and are making themselves 
felt in the economic, social, and educational life of the 
several communities. They work hand in hand with 
county agents, teachers, and ministers to build up a richer, 
fuller, and nobler country life. To support this elaborate 
program of rural organization and development, the new 
rural school must pledge its undivided cooperation, loyalty, 
and devotion. 

A sketch of farmers' organizations would be incomplete 
if no reference were made here to the repeated attempts 
of farmers to embark upon the sea of politics, Political 
though disastrous shipwrecks have been the organizations 
net results so far. The Farmers' Alliance, the Populist 
Party, and the recent Non-Partisan League movement 
have been the most conspicuous political ventures of the 
American farmers. These upheavals can be traced to 
periods of financial and economic stress ; and, in a broad 
sense, they may be termed class protests against intolerable 
conditions and concerted efforts to gain by forced legisla- 
tion what the government unwisely failed to grant. 

The collapse of these party schemes has been due mainly 
to two causes : the proverbial independence and indi- 
vidualistic nature of farmers, which precludes whole- 
hearted cooperation; and the appeal to class prejudice 
and false principles by some influential but unscrupulous 
and self-seeking leaders. These short-sighted leaders 
have undermined worthy causes by their folly and dis- 
credited their followers before the nation. As soon as 
country people have thoroughly learned the lessons of 
community cooperation, they will be ready for effective 
political cooperation, and some day the farmers will become 
a real power for clean politics and economic justice 
throughout the nation. 

[ 143 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

It would be manifestly unfair if in this program of rural 
organization we passed by in silence the work of the 
The farm women. Although they seldom organize 

women separately into pretentious associations or 

societies, their delicate feminine instincts, love of home and 
family, and reverence for things spiritual and religious have 
tempered many a movement and made life sweeter and 
happier. It is all the more fitting that due recognition 
should be accorded their services at this time when their 
national enfranchisement is nearing its culmination. 

Too long have the selfishness, stupidity, and gross 
ignorance of men denied their intelligent helpmates a legal 
voice in the affairs of government, whether local, state, or 
national. The lords of creation have for a century and a 
half been reiterating their undying belief in the God-given 
principle that all mankind is "created equal and is endowed 
by the Creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness," and yet have refused the boon 
of the franchise to their own equals, if not their superiors, 
in thought, refinement, and civilization ! Let us hope 
that this monstrous injustice will soon be a matter of 
memory only. 

At the annual meeting of the American Association of 
Farmers' Institutes in 1914, President Edward Van 
Alstyne paid to the women of rural America a beautiful 
but richly deserved tribute in quoting these lines : 

A house is built of bricks and stones, 

Of wood and beams and piers ; 
A home is built of loving deeds 

Which stand a thousand years. 

The men of earth build houses 

With pillars, walls, and domes ; 
But the women of the earth, God knows, 

The women build the homes. 

[ 144 ] 



CHAPTER NINE 

The Rural Teacher 

SOME day the American public must learn to place a 
higher value on its school teachers. There is much 
idle boasting among us about the exalted position which 
educators occupy and the esteem in which they are held 
by the people : but the naked truth is quite _ 

J f f > "i The nation slow 

to the contrary. Rarely does the average to appreciate 
teacher rise to a commanding position of com- lts teachers 
munity leadership. He is an itinerant public servant, 
roving from place to place in search of better pastures and 
seldom remains long enough in one position to stamp his 
personality upon the community or leave a lasting im- 
pression. There are, of course, intellectual giants and 
administrative geniuses in the faculties of universities, 
colleges, and other state institutions, and in the most 
desirable positions of the larger school systems, where a 
teacher will cast anchor for a time and become a tower of 
strength and a guiding hand in all worthy community 
endeavors; but these form an insignificant part of that 
vast host of teachers floating about the country and tossed 
by every educational wind that blows. Taken as a whole, 
the teaching force does not exhibit the strength which it 
ought to exhibit as molders of public opinion and pilots of 
the nation. 

With an average annual salary of $524.60 for all public 
school teachers in the United States, according to the 
latest available report of the National Bureau _ 

» •tip- Responsibility 

of Education, 1 with a host of immature and f the public 
poorly trained recruits entering the ranks each for e f lstm s 

. i » i conditions 

year, with a term of service less than seven 

years in length, and with the majority of teachers looking 

1 Report of the National Bureau of Education for 1916, Vol. II, page 30. 

[ 145 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

upon the profession as a temporary occupation and a step- 
ping-stone to something better, the public has no reason 
to complain of the results. Until teachers can be assured 
of at least a living wage and of reasonable security of tenure 
of office, the number of those who will choose teaching as 
their life work will be negligible. But the consequences 
for community and country are serious indeed. History 
is full of examples showing that when nations have honored 
and exalted their teachers; employed men of character, 
ability, and maturity; and made salary commensurate 
with service, the teachers, in turn, have rejuvenated, 
rebuilt, and changed the whole trend of national life, lifting 
their countrymen out of dire distress and bankruptcy into 
prosperity and enlightenment. Directly, or indirectly, 
the teachers mold the thought of each generation and, to 
a large degree, hold in their hands the nation's destiny. 
Can the public longer refuse to accept the responsibility 
of strengthening the teacher's position ? 

The country community presents educational conditions 
much worse than those pointed out for the nation at large. 
Conditions of Exact statistics showing the conditions of rural 
rural teachers teachers and urban teachers separately are not 
available, but reasoning from data that have 
been collected with much care, 1 it is safe to say that the 
average annual salary of country teachers employed in 
the one-room schools is less than $300, that the average 
age of beginners is but eighteen years, that their average 
term of service in the same school is less than two years of 
about 140 school days each, that more than one third of 
those now teaching had no professional training whatever, 
that four or five per cent did not complete the eighth grade 
before entering the teaching ranks, that only between two 
and three per cent are graduates of a normal school, and 

1 Bulletin 49, United States Bureau of Education, by H. W. Foght. 
[ 146 I 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

that less than one per cent have had superior training for 
rural leadership. To these handicaps must be added the 
following : The teacher of the one-room school has an aver- 
age of thirty daily recitations; she is "inspected," rather 
than visited or supervised, by the county superintendent 
from one to three times a year ; perhaps more than four 
fifths are their own janitors, and nearly all must walk from 
half a mile to two miles or more on a winter's morning to 
build their fires in a cold school building ; suitable boarding 
places are becoming more difficult to secure each year ; and 
the formidable disadvantages are constantly forcing the 
best teachers into the city systems. 

Some educators are disposed to lay the blame for these 
conditions upon the rural teachers. They hold that if 
country teachers would make the temporary pacing the 
sacrifice, prepare themselves thoroughly for blame 
their profession, and brave the environment for a time, 
salaries would adjust themselves, their efforts would be 
appreciated, and the unfavorable conditions would dis- 
appear one by one. To a limited extent this is true, but 
such persons fail to see the one supreme obstacle. They 
propose to adjust a primitive school to a complex modern rural 
life, a physical impossibility. 

No, the responsibility for the present condition of rural 
schools does not rest primarily with the teacher, it rests 
with the educational leaders and with the people of the 
community. A clarion call to reconstruct a school system 
which is the relic of another age and condition, must be 
sent out by every state department, county superin- 
tendent, and rural school supervisor until country people 
realize the seriousness of the situation and provide the 
remedy. The one-teacher school must be eliminated, 
and the consolidated, graded school must take its place 
wherever it is possible to transport children. Buildings 

[ 147] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

and environment must meet the new conditions, and 
teachers must be adequately paid. Then, and then only, 
will country children get a" square deal" in education and 
rural people be placed on an equal footing with city people 
in training for efficient, intelligent living. If local com- 
munities cannot bear the total expense of this change, the 
state must come to the rescue with financial aid from the 
general revenue fund. Let us repeat once more, and with 
increased emphasis, the burden of this change rests with 
the educational leaders and the farmers themselves. They 
must make the first move. 

With the reconstructed school and its ideal environment, 
the question of competent teachers will be speedily solved. 
Enthusiastic men and women will be glad to 
teacher in the train for service in the consolidated school 
new rural j us t as readily as teachers are now preparing 

themselves for the best city schools. The 
drawing power of the schools now in operation has already 
been fully demonstrated. A solemn obligation also rests 
upon every state superintendent and county superin- 
tendent charged with the administration of consolidated 
schools that the qualifications of teachers employed in 
them shall be second to no other teachers of corresponding 
grade. Furthermore, the broad academic and professional 
training of teachers for these new schools should be sup- 
plemented with special scientific, agricultural knowledge 
and a grasp of the fundamental principles underlying the 
rural life problem. The new teachers must possess vision, 
optimism, and a love for country life that will make them 
powerful instructors and exemplary companions of both 
children and adults. Their influence must reach far 
beyond the schoolroom. 

Some contend that only those who are born and raised in 
the country should attempt to teach in rural schools, but 

[ 148] 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

this is not necessarily true. A country-bred boy or girl, 
perfectly familiar with rural life as a whole, may in spite 
of that be so narrow and so lacking in all ability to lead 
and inspire others as to be entirely unfit for the position 
of country teacher, regardless of special training received. 
On the other hand, broad-minded and well-trained village 
or city people who love country life and have made special 
preparation for teaching in a consolidated school, some- 
times make excellent rural teachers. Other things being 
equal, those born and raised in the country should be pre- 
ferred as country teachers ; but the attitude, personality, 
training, and enthusiasm of the individual have much to 
do with his success. 

The most conspicuous shortcomings of the rural teachers, 
aside from their lack of professional training, have been 
their immaturity and ignorance of life outside The consoli . 
the schoolroom. No greater error could dated school 
possibly be committed than to select a young, pnncipal 
inexperienced teacher as principal of a consolidated school. 
The head of such a school should by all means be a well- 
trained teacher of experience, preferably a married man 
who has entered upon the profession as his life work. So 
rapidly have men been eliminated from the rural teaching 
force that those who use the masculine gender in speaking 
of country teachers are either deceiving their unsophisti- 
cated readers, or else they are picturing conditions as they 
used to be years ago and as these writers would like to see 
them now. Without a doubt, the country school is today 
suffering from too much femininity. Natural, country- 
wide economic conditions are constantly draining the rural 
teaching force of its young men until, in the North Atlantic 
states, the number of men teachers has probably been 
reduced to about ten per cent of the total force. Scores 
of counties in various Northern states have only from one 

[ 149 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

to half a dozen men teachers left in the one-room rural 
schools, and the reason is not far to seek. Any red- 
blooded young man of ability who may begin teaching in 
the one-room school will soon pass from that position to 
the principalship of a semi-graded, graded, or small high 
school or forsake the teaching profession for a more lucra- 
tive and permanent place in the business world. Those 
who remain in the rural school are, with few exceptions, 
of such mediocre ability that the profession and the schools 
would profit by their departure. 

Every one must regret that existing conditions have 
robbed the country of its strong men teachers, but the 
pendulum should soon swing the other way as the con- 
solidated school comes into its own. Some mature, ex- 
perienced women teachers are just as capable of acting 
as consolidated school principals as well-trained married 
men, so far as the school management is concerned; but 
for the sake of keeping the older boys in the rural high 
school, for the sake of their leadership among men in the 
various community organizations, and for the sake of mak- 
ing changes in the principal's position less frequent, the 
heads of these schools should be men of the highest type. 

From the days of the famous Ichabod Crane to anno 
Domini 1918, the peripatetic rural pedagogue has been 
The teacher as the mirth-provoking hero or heroine of news- 
a community paper men and magazine writers, and the 

citizen and . . i i 1 1 1 

community despair ol country school boards and county 
leader superintendents. Of late the order has re- 

ceived a new appellation ; namely, "the suitcase teacher." 
Its members pack their grips, or suitcases, on Friday 
morning and take their belongings with them to the school- 
house, where, promptly at four in the afternoon, "some- 
body" calls for the object of his choice and together they 
whirl away to the home in town for the delightful week- 
f 150 1 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

end. Late Sunday night, or early Monday morning, 
stern-faced duty bids the wanderer, and owner of the in- 
separable suitcase, to return for another round of labors 
till four in the afternoon of the following Friday, and so 
on throughout the school year. In a way, no one can 
blame these birds of passage, for they are yet mere fledg- 
lings and too young to forsake the parental nest. Nor 
would the effect be very different if such teachers remained 
in the district throughout the week, for the Good Book 
says, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be 
also"; and rarely do these folks find their treasures in 
the schoolroom or the school district. Pray, what shall 
the harvest be from the seed sown by these sowers between 
nine o'clock Monday morning and four o'clock Friday 
afternoon ? Assuredly, there will be much chaff and little 
wheat to gather into the storehouse of life. 

Now, seriously, does this condition prevail to any extent 
in the rural schools of today? Yes, unfortunately, it is 
more common than one would imagine; and worse still, 
there is no effective remedy for it until we "Oslerize" the 
conditions that give it birth and change the environment 
of the school. Happily, the description does not fit a 
large majority of the faithful, earnest rural teachers who 
are doing their best under every handicap, but it fits a 
considerable minority as the strait- jacket fits the con- 
vict ; and the very schools that need "real" teachers most 
suffer continually from this maladjustment. Again let 
us repeat, the blame rests upon the people of the district, 
not upon the teacher. Districts that invest nothing in 
their schools receive nothing in return. Meanwhile 
innocent children are the chief sufferers. 

How different this picture will be when people make an 
investment for their school that is really worth while. 
Then the district will become the teacher's home for the 

f 151 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

school term and the principal will live among his patrons 
for twelve months of the year. The school manse will be 
as integral a part of the school plant as schoolrooms and 
blackboards; and all teachers will be citizens of the dis- 
trict in fact, and not in name only. The community's 
interest will be their interest and summer vacation will 
be only a brief interruption of pleasant labors in a chosen 
field and not the signal for canvassing the state and joining 
the teachers' agencies to bargain for new positions. 
Teachers will be proud of staying in one district long 
enough to witness the fruits of their labors in the lives of 
their pupils and to leave behind them an influence that 
will not be effaced for years to come. This is the status 
of real teachers, clean, virtuous, God-fearing men and 
women, full of enthusiasm for their chosen profession. 
Every community needs them, but the country community 
most of all, because here leadership, manhood, and woman- 
hood are indispensable for a redirection of rural life. 

The terms "teacher's manse" and "teacherage" seldom 

appeared in the pedagogical literature of this country until 

the dawn of the new century, but the words 

The teacherage , . r. t *i* j 

are beginning to have a familiar sound. 
Even before the advent of consolidated schools, teachers' 
homes or teacherages were occasionally erected in some 
country districts where suitable boarding places for 
teachers could not be secured. Teachers must have 
homes in which to live, and with some degree of comfort, 
whether teaching in town or in the open country ; and if 
the neighboring farmers cannot or will not provide board 
and room for them, the only alternative is to provide a 
home at the district's expense. This at once opens up 
another grave question. 

Unless rural schools are under the control of a county 
board of education with power to erect teachers' homes 

f 152 1 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

for several near-by one-teacher schools, so that a number 
of young lady teachers may live together in one home, 
it is doubtful whether such teachers' homes 
should be built for the separate small dis- fo r \ne-room ** 
tricts. The mammoth, unorganized district schools ad- 
in St. Louis County, Minnesota, mentioned 
in Chapter IV, 1 which is ideally situated to group its 
districts in this way, has successfully applied the method 
and possesses more teachers' homes for rural schools than 
any other district or county in the United States; but 
counties or districts similarly situated are so rare that the 
model is applicable only to an insignificant fraction of the 
country schools of the nation. 

In isolated cases, married men might be secured as 
teachers, who would make use of a teacherage, or in a few 
cases the young lady teacher might depend upon a widowed 
mother or older relative to act as housekeeper for her; 
but in other cases the system must be condemned as 
undesirable. Again, if a rural district is progressive 
enough to be willing to build a teachers' home for a one- 
room school, should its citizens not also be willing to go 
a step further and first effect consolidation with a neigh- 
boring district, unless insurmountable physical difficulties 
forbid? A teachers' home for a consolidated school of 
the open country is a self-evident necessity and a good 
investment for the district; but for a one-room school, 
which gives no assurance of being able to employ a married 
teacher with a family, it must ordinarily prove a failure. 

Consolidated schools located in small country towns 
can usually secure for their teachers acceptable homes 
with private families of the community ; but in the open 
country consolidations, a teachers' home beside the school- 
house becomes an immediate necessity. No farm home 
1 See Chapter IV, page 33. 

[ 153 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

near the school could possibly provide accommodations 
for the principal and his family and for several other 
teachers, and teachers could hardly be ex- 
dated°s°h°ooi pected to room and board in farm homes dis- 
andthe tant from the school and depend upon the 

school busses for transportation. This would 
be a most short-sighted policy for the district to pursue, 
because the teachers need to be at school morning and 
evening, before and after school hours, to prepare for the 
work of the day or of the next day. It is also most essen- 
tial that teachers should live near the school so that they 
may be close at hand to aid and plan for evening com- 
munity gatherings of all kinds; and finally, there is the 
social fellowship of co-workers, so needful and helpful in 
making rural school teaching enjoyable and profitable. 
In fact, every person of average intelligence can plainly 
see why a consolidated school should have its teachers' 
home as an integral and essential part of its school plant. 

So important did the General Education Board of 
New York deem the subject of providing suitable homes 
for rural teachers, that a few years ago it set aside 
Encouragement a fund of $25,000 to aid in the building of 
glV ] Ed Y °t en comfortable teacherages, in typical rural 
Board communities, as an object lesson for the na- 

tion. The board's offer was to pay one half the cost of 
building and to furnish an attractive, sensible, modern 
rural home for country teachers if the district would agree 
to pay the other half of the cost. The officers of the board 
deserve the thanks of every farming community for their 
generosity and vision, in making a practical demonstration 
of the feasibility of this new idea. 

Three commodious, modern teachers' homes in Minne- 
sota, located at Alberta in Stevens County, Nicollet in 
Nicollet County, and Petersburg in Jackson County have 

[ 154 ] 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

received $3500 each from this fund, and the complete cost 
of each home exceeds $7000. The accompanying picture 
showing the Alberta home is an index of the character of 
these buildings. In addition to the three schools just men- 
tioned, four others, in Mississippi, were aided to the extent 
of $1000 from the same fund. 

Available data indicate that not less than 600 teachers' 
homes of all kinds have been erected in connection with 
the public school systems of the United States, but most 
of them are of the smaller type and more than one third 
of the number are located in the states of Texas and 
Washington. Teacherages for consolidated schools are 
reported as follows : Louisiana, forty-two ; Mississippi, 
thirty ; Iowa, fifteen ; Tennessee, seven ; Minnesota, six ; 
North Carolina, five; Massachusetts, three; South Da- 
kota and Illinois, two each; and Missouri and New 
Mexico, one each. A number of states report no teachers' 
homes, and others had no information on the subject. 

A vivid account of the value of a teacherage to a con- 
solidated school and also of the influence of consolidation 
on a rural community is given by Principal Fred Graf elman 
of Alberta, Minnesota, in the following letter : 

Alberta.. Minnesota 
January 12, 1918 
My dear Mr. Arp: 

In answer to your favor of January 4, I am pleased to say 
that you will always find me ready to do the very best I can for 
the noble cause of consolidation which you are again expounding. 
In a few days I shall send you a good picture of the manse, which 
I know will reproduce well for publication. 

The complete cost of the manse is about $7000, the teachers' 
floor being furnished with the best of furniture and other equip- 
ment, ready to move into at a moment's notice. A piano is the 
only modern home convenience which is omitted. The teachers 
have a most beautiful home where they are welcome. All of 

[ 155 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

their time is spent either in professional work or in professional 
leisure, as it ought to be with professional people. Their house- 
keeper does all the work. The teachers' time belongs to the 
school and to themselves. I am inclosing a reprint of Dr. Vin- 
cent's article from the Review of Reviews, in which he described 
the manse in detail. Ours is the first modern teachers' home in 
the United States. 1 The complete living expenses of each 
teacher, including the laundry, is from $22 to $24 per month. 
Last year it was less. The war prices make the difference. They 
are still getting their living about $10 per month cheaper than 
other teachers who get something inferior to these splendid, com- 
plete home comforts at Alberta. 

The manse is proving a people's clubhouse, especially the 
basement. It is the means of securing just as good teachers 
for country boys and girls as city children enjoy, thereby giving 
them the same educational advantages. Our manse has twenty- 
one rooms, and is really a three-story building. We have space 
for three more good rooms in the large attic. We all feel happy 
in this beautiful home and try to realize that we are country 
teachers enjoying complete city home comforts. It compares 
splendidly with the best of homes. Think of bathing in it in 
wholesome comfort when we used to perform these requisites of 
civilized life in a snowdrift ! 

I believe that we have also the best plan of managing the 
teacher family. With us the teacher is supposed to give her time 
and some of her leisure to the district. We consider that only 
about half her work is done within the school walls. The house- 
keeper does all the work and our teachers get three square meals 
a day, well cooked and served, for a good teacher must be well fed, 
you know. 

Ours was the school where Rural School Commissioner E. M. 
Phillips recommended not to consolidate because there was too 
much opposition to give us a chance for success. We went ahead 
with our plans, nevertheless ; and our school was barely estab- 

1 Mr. Grafelman is probably mistaken in this, because a six-thousand 
dollar teachers' home at Rollo, De Kalb County, Illinois, was erected 
prior to the Alberta home. 

[ 156] 







i 

Mm 

"CSS 
■ 


HP 


1 


« 


IK 




— - ' |HI 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

lished when it was chosen by the United States government to 
represent the rural consolidated schools at the Panama-Pacific 
Exposition, where we won the silver medal. I should not have 
come to Alberta six years ago, just when they were organizing, 
if it had not been for my absolute faith in the idea of consolida- 
tion. I reasoned that if we could make it a success at Alberta, 
it could easily be done in more favorable situations. Today, 
not a "kicker" remains. No one would go back to the old one- 
room school if given a chance. Everybody is converted. It 
has been at least two years since I have heard any one even dis- 
cuss the subject. The superiority of our kind of school is an 
axiom here. 

Our people feel proud of what their children have accom- 
plished. This was the principal cause of converting our patrons, 
in spite of the higher taxes. In 1915 one of our girls won the 
state championship in canning and received a gold medal and 
$25 in gold in addition. Another won the silver medal for bread 
baking in the same year. Still another won the silver medal in 
canning the next year; and one of our boys held the county 
championship in corn raising for three successive years. Our 
corn-club boys have secured first, second, and third prizes for 
four years now, and one of our girls is the champion county 
speller. The school this year holds the county championship 
in corn growing, gardening, and pig growing, but lost out on 
canning. We have boys' and girls' glee clubs, corn club, bread- 
baking club, canning club, gardening club, and pig-growing club. 
Outside we have a live commercial club which works well with 
our school interests, a woman's club, and a Red Cross chapter. 
The school is the real social center and has changed the whole 
community. Nearly everything in the district is accomplished 
through this school. 

For further information and opinion write to Carl Henrikson, 
the president of the board, and to William Causman, past presi- 
dent, both of whom were the bitterest enemies of the school at 
first, but now are its firmest friends. 

I have written you at length to show what has been done 
under the most discouraging conditions in the state. Nothing 

[157] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

could prove the soundness of the consolidation idea more com- 
pletely than the accomplishments under these extreme difficulties. 
To make our burdens heavier still, the school had to go through 
two bitter lawsuits in the beginning of its history. 

Fraternally yours, 

Fred Geafelman 

The following views on the teacherage were expressed 
by Dr. George E. Vincent, the present head of the General 
Education Board of New York, formerly President of the 
University of Minnesota : 

A teacher's house or school manse is peculiarly necessary to 
the success of the consolidated rural school, which, it is now 
agreed, is to be the typical country school of the future. There 
should be built, in connection with the consolidated school, on 
the same grounds with the school building and heated by the 
same plant, a permanent house for the use of the teaching staff. 
This building should contain a wholly separate apartment for 
the principal and his family, living room and bedrooms for the 
women teachers, laundry, kitchen, etc. It should be equipped 
with a view to providing in the community a model of taste- 
ful and economical domestic furnishing and decoration. The 
rentals and other charges should be so regulated as to provide 
for the maintenance, insurance, repairs, and renewals of equip- 
ment, but not for a sinking fund. The house should be regarded 
as a part of the school plant and included in the regular bond 
issue for construction. A privately owned manse in Illinois is 
netting eight per cent on an investment of $10,000. 

The manse has a bearing in several ways upon the educational 
work of the school. Flowers and vegetable gardens are natural 
features of school premises which are also residence quarters. 
The domestic-science work of the school can be connected in val- 
uable ways with the practical problems of manse management. 
The cost accounting offers a capital example of bookkeeping. 
The use of the school as a community center is widened and its 
value enhanced. The school as an institution takes on a more 
vital character in the eyes of the countryside. 

f 158 1 



THE RURAL TEACHER 

Most of all is the effect upon the teacher. Comfortably 
heated, well-lighted quarters, comradeship with colleagues — 
and at the same time personal privacy — a satisfying, coopera- 
tively managed table, independence of the petty family rivalries 
of a small community, a recognized institutional status, combine 
to attract to the consolidated rural-school manse teachers of a 
type which will put the country school abreast of the modern 
educational movement. It is futile to preach the gospel of sac- 
rifice for the cause of rural education. There is no reason why 
rural teachers should be called upon to sacrifice themselves. 
They ought not to do it, and they will not do it. The school 
manse is not a fad, nor a luxury ; it is a fundamental necessity. 1 

These changed conditions demand a changed attitude 
towards country life. To no one else does the call for rural 
leadership come with the same force as it does xhecaiifor 
to the new rural teacher. Living among his rural leadership 
patrons, beside the schoolhouse, he shares their ambitions, 
aims, and desires to make the community the best possible 
place to live in for himself, his family, his neighbors, and 
their families. He has come to stay for a term of years, is a 
citizen of the district like his neighbors, and wants school 
and community to prosper. His ideals, personality, and 
vision must give force and direction to every social, 
moral, and spiritual community enterprise. 

In a city the teacher is but one of many capable leaders 
who are called upon to guide and direct community proj- 
ects outside of regular school activities ; but in the country 
district the head of the public school is usually the man 
best fitted for community leadership and the man upon 
whom the progress and the moral tone of the entire neigh- 
borhood will largely depend. His possibilities and oppor- 
tunities in this service are legion. 

1 See Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 
September, 1916, page 168. 

\ 159 1 



CHAPTER TEN 

Transportation of Pupils and Cost of Consolidation 

transportation 

ALL serious opposition to consolidation now centers 
about two principal valid arguments : the difficulty 
of transporting pupils, and increased taxation. Ostensibly, 
the opponents of the new idea fear transportation most, 
but nearly always the real fear is increased 

Arguments " ^ , . 

against con- taxation. When consolidation was in its 
soiidation infancy and successful central schools were 

few and little known, the sponsors of the new idea were at 
first subjected to no end of ridicule and later to vindictive 
abuse. Excitement frequently ran high and neighborhood 
feeling waxed warm as people took steps to bring the ques- 
tion to a vote. The very novelty of the proposal was 
sufficient to draw the fire of most conservatives, and they 
were not slow to marshal an array of arguments against 
it. Some of these were plausible and valid, others were 
silly and fanciful. The following samples are selected at 
random : 

"Why, the idea of it ! The school tax for maintenance 
alone will be at least from a dollar to two dollars per acre 
annually. It will bankrupt every farmer. School wag- 
ons cannot travel in cold, stormy weather or on muddy 
roads, and the schools will be closed half the time. Chil- 
dren will freeze to death standing at the crossroads and 
waiting for a wagon that may never come. They will leave 
home at six o'clock in the morning and will not return till 
after dark at night. There will be quarreling and fighting 
in the bus, and drivers will indulge in obscene language 
before little children. Bus drivers cannot be hired at all 
or will demand as much salary as the United States rural 
mail carriers. Teams will run away and upset the rigs. 

[ 160 1 



TRANSPORTATION 

Careless drivers will cause accidents at railway crossings. 
A blizzard might come up suddenly and children and 
driver lose their way in it. A child may get sick at school 
five miles from home; then what? With a hundred or 
more children in one building, think of the danger from 
fire and contagious diseases ! We don't want too much 
education for our children anyway or they will all stop 
working. Farmers' children need only an eighth-grade 
education. High schools and industrial studies are simply 
frills. We don't intend to make doctors and lawyers out 
of our children, and the district schools are good enough 
for them. If we consolidate, the children will not be at 
home mornings and evenings to help with the chores. 
The boys and girls will be so spoiled from riding in a fine 
bus that they will refuse to walk or do any hard work at 
home. We shall have to dress them up in expensive 
clothes to attend these high-toned schools. Consolidation 
is a wild scheme of some hair-brained county superin- 
tendent; it will never become permanent and in a few 
years every consolidated school will go back to the old 
system. We must have all roads graveled or paved before 
we can transport children. If consolidation is effected, 
every farmer will want to sell out and land values will be 
greatly reduced. Consolidation may work in some places, 
but it never will in our district. I read in my paper the 
other day that they are abandoning consolidated schools 
again in nearly every other state. Well, there's no use 
talking, it can't be done." 

The only reason for quoting these objections is to shed 
some light on the motives and ideas of men and women 
who oppose consolidation. A little study of Letting in the 
the arguments reveals that they center about li & ht 
three principal points ; namely : (1) some phase of the 
transportation problem; (2) the indifference of some 

[ 161 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

people toward better school facilities and an up-to-date 
education, and the sordid viewpoint of others who sub- 
ordinate the child's welfare to his economic value as a 
farmhand ; (3) the fear of increased school taxes (usually 
denied by an opponent when forced to defend his position). 

The first point is by far the most important. In lo- 
calities that are subject to severe winters or to muddy 
and heavy roads at certain seasons of the year, transporta- 
tion of children is a serious obstacle to successful con- 
solidation. If children can be transported safely, rapidly, 
and comfortably, all other objections may be speedily 
overcome. The best proof which we now have that 
transportation is possible, even under difficulties, is the 
fact that thousands of conveyances are daily transporting 
children to and from school in all parts of the country, 
and, as a rule, are keeping schedule time with a precision 
that is astonishing. Nevertheless, the terrors of trans- 
portation do haunt timid people, and thousands of farmers 
refuse to be convinced of the safety and feasibility of 
conveying children. Wagon routes should therefore be 
planned with the utmost care and should be intelligently 
supervised at all times. Happily, the experimental stage 
of transportation is now past. The ordinary difficulties 
and the errors formerly made are so well known that no 
one needs to be ignorant of them. It is especially in- 
cumbent upon every superintendent likely to have con- 
solidated schools organized within his county to be 
thoroughly familiar with all details of the transportation 
problem. 

The following general rules form a safe and reasonable 
basis for successful conveyance of children : 

A district depending on horse-drawn conveyances should 
make six miles the extreme limit of any route. A haul 
of five to five and one-half miles is safer and better. 

[ 162 ] 



TRANSPORTATION 

No matter how the routes are laid out, no child should 
be compelled to ride more than six miles in going to 
or returning from school. The conveyance 
should travel along the public highway and 
not drive up to the several farmhouses. Any child may 
reasonably be expected to walk half a mile or three fourths 
of a mile to meet the wagon at the highway or at a section 
corner. In exceedingly cold and stormy weather, parents 
must see to it that small children reach the bus safely and 
without needless exposure. 

All drivers of school wagons must be mature and reliable 
persons of good moral character. No school board should 
accept the services of a driver whose character 
is not above reproach and whose habits are 
questionable. A sufficient bond, covering the contract 
price, to guarantee the faithful performance of his duties, 
must be required, and in case of a minor the bond should 
be given by the parent or guardian. The school board 
must have full control over drivers and routes at all times 
and may formulate new rules or alter a route whenever 
the welfare of the patrons demands it. They should dele- 
gate to the principal or superintendent of the school 
complete authority to supervise and direct the transporta- 
tion. Drivers must have definite control over pupils en 
route, with power to eject from the vehicle a persistent 
and flagrant offender; but all corporal punishment must 
rest with the principal, to whom each offense should be 
promptly reported. No unbecoming language or ill- 
mannered conduct in pupil or driver must be tolerated. 

The hour for departure of each bus or vehicle must be 
definitely fixed, and a complete time-table 
showing the various stopping places en route uie and report 
must be in the driver's possession; and he ofdnver 
must adhere strictly to the schedule under average condi- 

[ 163 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

tions of roads and weather. On a route whose maximum 
length is five or five and one-half miles, no child should 
enter the bus before 7.40 a.m. If the roads are muddy, 
or travel is slow for other reasons, the rate per mile should 
be increased on such days to fit the circumstances, but the 
time for departure of the bus from the starting point must not 
be altered. If the busses cannot reach the schoolhouse on 
such mornings by 9 a.m., the opening of school may be 
deferred till 9.15 or 9.30 and the recesses and noon inter- 
missions shortened accordingly. All consolidated schools 
having long transportation routes should close school 
promptly at 3.30 p.m., and every child should reach home 
by 5 o'clock. In gathering up the children, the wagon 
must wait a reasonable time at a stopping point for chil- 
dren who may be a little late. Each family along the 
route should know the exact time at which the wagon is 
supposed to be at that particular stopping point, and the 
driver should make a detailed report each day on a card 
suitable for filing, which will indicate every variation from 
schedule and reasons therefor. Mature women and older 
high school boys often make excellent drivers. 

Authority to approve transportation rigs should rest 

with the state department of education in each state, and 

the superintendent should insist upon safe and 

comfortable conveyances. Where the law 

permits it, the district should own the vehicles. In cold 

regions they must be equipped with robes and blankets 

and must be heated by foot warmers or other artificial 

means and be so constructed as to protect children against 

wind, snow, or rain. Windows at both ends and sides of 

the vehicle are essential to prevent semi-darkness inside 

and to safeguard the morals of the children. The driver 

must ride with the children inside the bus, to insure proper 

order and control. Where the snowfall is heavy during 

[ 164 1 




Domestic science class of consolidated school at Brewster, Nobles County, 
Minnesota 




The Brewster, Minnesota, consolidated school and its auto busses. These 

auto trucks are operating on ordinary dirt roads and each brings in 

two loads of school children every morning. 



TRANSPORTATION 

the winter months, sleighs or runners for the wagons must 
also be provided. Recently auto trucks have come into 
extensive use in nearly every state to convey school chil- 
dren. While the initial cost of an auto bus greatly exceeds 
that of a horse-drawn vehicle, the former covers more 
territory, gives better service, and its operating expense 
is much less. Wherever a heavy touring car may venture 
to travel the country roads throughout the school year, 
auto transportation can be relied upon. Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and other states 
depending upon ordinary dirt roads find auto transporta- 
tion feasible and satisfactory in a great many districts. 

Almost without exception, public conveyance of school 
children is superior to private conveyance, for several 
reasons. It is cheaper, because it takes fewer m _ ... 

r > ^ 5. Public ver- 

horses and vehicles, attendance is more regu- sus private 
lar, and children are more certain of proper trans P° rtatlon 
protection against inclement weather. The sole advan- 
tage of private over public transportation is that it takes 
a few children to school more quickly and by a more direct 
route. In some states parents living beyond a certain 
distance limit from a schoolhouse are allowed a fixed sum 
per child in lieu of public transportation. For example, 
in South Dakota district boards may allow parents for 
this purpose the following compensation : 

10 cents per day for each child living <&\ miles to 3 miles from school 

Qr\ <( << <( << <( (< (( o << "J, " " i " 

gQ t( (t « (t tt (I « £ « t( g « « « 

40 " " " " " " " over 5 miles distant from school 

This rate is reduced if more than one child from the same 
family is attending school. Except in sparsely settled 
districts or under peculiar conditions, private transporta- 
tion is undesirable and seldom gives complete satisfaction. 

[ 165 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

The conveyance employed to transport children prac- 
tically determines the size of the district. If auto trans- 
6 size of the portation is feasible throughout the year, or 
consolidated if children can travel by trolley or steam rail- 
distnct way, the district may, of course, be very much 

larger than one which depends upon the team haul. In the 
latter case a district containing from twenty to thirty-six 
sections of land is the most desirable. In exceptional 
cases it may exceed a township, or thirty-six sections; 
but in a state subject to cold weather or heavy roads, any 
district exceeding this limit usually presents some difficult 
problems of transportation. Unless special provision can 
be made for these, the larger district ought not to be or- 
ganized. On the other hand, a small district with a low 
taxable valuation and less than seventy-five children of 
school age, is unsatisfactory, and if organized it should be 
capable of future growth. The topography of the district 
may necessitate some variation from the standard condi- 
tions suggested. Absolute rules governing individual 
districts cannot be formulated. 

The cost of transportation varies in the several states, 
depending upon the general state policy and local condi- 
7. The cost of tions of roads, distance, and climate ; but the 
transportation average cost per rig or per child is reasonable 
indeed, and not the heavy financial burden that some 
people have been inclined to believe. The statistics 
given on the following page will shed further light upon 
the question. 

Unfortunately most states have not given statistics on 
transportation of pupils the attention which the subject 
deserves; but the available evidence proves beyond a 
doubt that for the entire country, drivers of school wagons 
have so far been secured at an average salary of $50 per 
month ; and the average cost per pupil per year has been 

[ 166 1 



TRANSPORTATION 



Comparative Cost of Transportation in Different States, Giv- 
ing the Latest Available Data in Answer to a Special Ques- 
tionnaire Sent out December 31, 1917. (Most of the figures 
obtained cover the school years 1915-1916 and 1916-1917. In 
some cases estimates only could be furnished.) 











Cost per 






State 


Total Number 

of Consoli- 
dated Schools 


Number of 
Pupils 
Trans- 
ported 


Number 
of Ve- 
hicles 
Used 


Vehicle 

or 
Driver 

per 
Month 


Cost per 
Child 

per 
Year 


Total 

Cost per 

Year 


Ind. 


706 














530 (number 


46,997 


2046 


$50.00 


$19.19 


$902,047.57 




transporting) 












Mass. 












539,129.41 


Iowa 


196 




997 


60.00 




474,865.00 


N.J. 








52.92 




430,000.00 


N. Dak. 


447 (1916-17) 


1410 in 25 

schools 
(1914-1915) 




55.00 


25.00 




Minn. 


251 


9,675 


588 


49.31 


27.42 


265,353.00 


La. 


600 














200 (transport- 


7,466 


352 


42.20 


23.49 


103,427.00 




ing pupils) 












Miss. 


290 


14,643 


725 


35.00 






Ga. 


166 (transport- 
ing pupils) 


3,619 


231 




9.02 


32,640.00 


Mo. 


3 (transporting 

pupils) 
40 




20 


45.00 






Neb. 




28 


52.27 




10,451.50 


N. Mex. 


12 




26 


60.00 




10,000.00 
(app.) 


Tenn. 


34 




23 


28.00 






Nev. 


6 




5 


40.00 






N. C. 


20 




32 


50.00 






Idaho 


27 




97 






35,000.00 


S. Dak. 


10 






60.00 






Maine 




7,897 








186,316.00 


Conn. 


(72 schools 
transporting) 










117,739.11 


Mich. 












64,707.23 


Ky. 


12 


30 








16,932.86 


Okla. 


109 


241 




40.00 




95,299.80 


Ohio 


539 (no other 
data) 












Wash. 


218 (see special 
report below) 












111. 


5 (depend al- 
most entirely 
on private 
conveyance) 






60.00 






Wis. 


10 


300 


31 


246.00 
(per year) 




7,629.21 


Vt. 


50 


500 




25.00 




186,933.18 



Note. In the New England states much of the transportation is 
simply the conveyance of children to school who live a mile or more from 
school, and such children may not even be taken to a central or village 
school. 

[ 167 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

less than $25. Some exceptional difficulties in certain 
states are worthy of special attention; and the report 
from Washington indicates how perplexing and intricate 
it is for the school officers of that state. Their remarkable 
achievement should be an inspiration to all. 

State Superintendent Josephine Preston, in a recent 
School Transportation Bulletin, gives these interesting 
items, among many others : 

Almost every type of transportation, except the aeroplane 
and submarine, is used in this state to bring boys and girls to 
school. Washington, in many ways one of the most advanced 
states in the Union, is still in some respects a pioneer state. 
Despite its cities and its industrial development, through most of 
its area population is still scattered and steam or electric lines 
not fully developed. The deep snows of the mountains, the wet 
weather in the western part of the state, and a great variety of 
topography — including mountains, rivers, lakes, prairies, the 
ocean, and the Sound — present a number of difficulties to the 
transportation of pupils to and from school. Yet despite all 
these obstacles the state, county, and district promise every boy 
and girl in the state a good education ; and if we cannot take the 
school to the boy or girl, we have to bring the boy or girl to the 
school. Indian ponies, bob sleds, wagons, rowboats, launches, 
railways, and auto busses have all been drafted into the service. 

Advantages of transportation summarized in the Bulletin 

1 . Pupils are not exposed to rain and weather on their way to 
school. They do not sit in school all day with damp garments. 

2. They arrive at school fresh and ready for work, not tired 
out by a long tramp. 

3. They do not have to leave home as early in the morning. 

4. They are under proper chaperonage while going to and 
from school — the time when immoral influences would other- 
wise have an opportunity to make an impression. 

5. The attendance of the district is improved. The teacher 
does not spend her time with a mere handful of pupils, 

[ 168 1 



TRANSPORTATION 

6. Pupils who could not otherwise come to school are enabled 
to attend. 

7. Regularly enrolled pupils are enabled to attend under 
weather conditions which would otherwise keep them at home. 

8. Consolidation is made possible. 

Other facts gleaned from a questionnaire to which 163 consolidated 
schools out of a total of 218 replied 

Number of districts using auto busses 33 

Number using wagons, horses, or sleighs 102 

Number using boats 12 

Number of schools using two or more of above methods . . 10 

Number of districts transporting but not replying .... 69 
Number of districts not furnishing transportation where some 

pupils furnish their own 6 

Number of districts where some pupils furnish their own trans- 
portation in addition to that furnished by the district . 66 
Total number of districts in which pupils furnish their own means 

without cost to the district 72 

Number of districts allowing some pupils funds to pay for trans- 
portation in addition to maintaining public conveyance 20 
Number of districts allowing some pupils funds for conveyance 

but maintaining no regular conveyance 18 

Number of districts in which some pupils walk over two miles 41 
Average expense per month per district for transportation in 

65 districts $107.07 

Items from some district reports 

This district is furnishing transportation by motor boat to 
children outside the two-mile limit. The father of a family 
living within the two-mile limit sometimes brings his children 
to school in his own launch at his own expense. — Mary Slifer, 
Clerk of District No. 44, Pacific County. 

For eight other children, we are providing transportation 
across a cove. Their ages are from 6 to 12 years. For this 
service, the district is paying fifty cents per day every day the 
school is in session. The man doing the work furnishes his own 
rowboat. — John A. Benson, Clerk of District No. 54, Mason 
County. 

[ 169 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

We run two launches and two wagons. One wagon starts 
two miles from the schoolhouse and averages eighteen pupils. 
This wagon costs $35 per month. The other starts three and a 
half miles from school, hauls fifteen children, and costs $50. 
One launch travels five miles, carries sixteen pupils, and costs 
$40. It makes the trip in an hour. The other launch travels 
two and a half miles, carries eight children, and costs $20. It 
makes the trip in about 25 minutes. We do not pay any of the 
twenty-one pupils who furnish their own conveyance, but the 
district maintains a barn in which the pupils tie their horses free 
of charge. Total cost of transportation to the district this year 
was $145 per month. Next year we shall have to get a motor 
truck or add two wagons. — George W. Buker, Clerk of Dis- 
trict No. 20, Ridgeway, Clarke County. 

Many similar letters might be quoted from the same 
Bulletin. 

Minnesota, because of the severity of its long winters, 
has reason to exercise the greatest care in transporting 
children, and the state has wisely provided that all children 
in a consolidated school district who live beyond the two- 
mile limit must be conveyed to school at public expense 
or be furnished suitable boarding places near the school at 
the expense of the district. Since the state pays about 
ninety-five per cent of the entire transportation bill out 
of the state treasury, it demands first-class service and its 
transportation equipment is the best in the country. Yet 
the cost of conveying children is by no means excessive. 
For the year 1916-1917, 588 school wagons transported 
9675 children at a total cost of $265,353, and of this amount 
the state contributed $249,798 — the limit to any one 
school being fixed by law at $2000 per annum. The 
average cost per driver per month was $49.31, and the 
total cost per pupil per year was $27.42, of which the state 
paid $25.82. Wisconsin paid its ten consolidated schools, 
as special aid, $4829.92 out of a total of $7629.21. 

[ 170] 



TRANSPORTATION 

Hundreds of letters from parents and children living 
in all parts of the United States testify to the what children 
fact that they appreciate consolidation and and parents 
the convenience of systematic transportation. so iidationand 
A few such, published in the New Jersey transportation 
Bulletin on Consolidation issued July, 1916, are here 
reproduced. 

Morristown, New Jersey 
October 18, 1914 

The conveyance for the children has been very satisfactory, 
being always on time and driven by a careful and competent man. 
The stage is in good condition, and comes prepared for all kinds 
of weather, such as curtains for front and sides, also foot warmers 
and robes for very cold days. Since having the stage, my chil- 
dren have not missed a day from school. Without it, it would be 
impossible for them to attend in bad weather. They are doing 
remarkably well. Mary, who is one year and two months in 
school, is in the third grade. Doris, aged 5, is going about a 
month and can read her Primer. Emily, who is in the eighth 
grade now, has done very well. — From letter written to Princi- 
pal R. F. Schaffer of Morristown, New Jersey. 

The following extracts are from letters written by pupils 
of Randolph County, Indiana : 

I attended a district school nine years, but like the consoli- 
dated school much better. The teachers have more time with 
each class, as each teacher has only two or three classes. Then 
they teach manual training and domestic science, which is im- 
possible in a one-room building. The building is well ventilated 
and kept at a certain temperature. Before they built the 
school only a few scholars went to high school, but now nearly 
all go. 

I have spent three out of my four years in the consolidated 
school here, and I find that the advantages are much greater 
than in the former one-room school. 

r 171 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

This makes the fifth year I have spent in the centralized school. 
During this time I have taken the eighth-grade work, and at 
present I am a member of the senior class. My home is in the 
farthest corner of the township, and I have always come in a 
school hack and for the past four years have driven one. I find 
the centralized school far superior to the district school in every 
respect — especially in the vocational training, which cannot be 
given successfully in the district school. 

First, I will say that I would not go back to a small school, 
where the lower grades are taught, for anything. We have a 
room upstairs for cooking and sewing. I like this especially, 
for we learn all about cooking, and caring for the kitchen at 
home, which is a great help to our mothers. 

This consolidated school gives the rural boy the benefit of a 
high school education, whereas only a few would go to the city 
high school. In this county ninety-five per cent of the eighth- 
grade graduates entered the high school. 

Any one who has ever been to a consolidated school and has 
seen the work that is being done in the schools would fight for it 
and not against it. The Wayne building has good ventilation, 
for the air is drawn in from the outside and blown through the 
building by a large fan. Therefore the children breathe nothing 
but fresh air. 

We have further testimony concerning the efficiency of 
the consolidated school and the experience in transporta- 
tion, from a thorough investigation of it by Dr. Thomas 
E. Finnegan of New York. 1 He secured valuable and 
accurate information from the best-informed people of 
various states which have taken a leading part in the 
movement, asking each of them the following specific 
questions : 

1 See the New York Annual Report on Elementary Education, for 
1917, Vol. II, page 409. 

[ 172 1 



TRANSPORTATION 

1. What effect has the establishment of consolidated 
schools had upon the value of farm property within the 
territory where such schools have been established? 

2. Has the establishment of such schools been the means 
of providing a system of education which is adapted to the 
needs of agricultural life and, if so, in what way ? 

3. What is the general attitude of the people in the 
consolidated districts towards the continuance of the con- 
solidated school, after it has been established and its work 
becomes effective ? 

4. Are better educated and trained teachers provided 
in the consolidated schools than were provided in the 
separate schools ? 

5. Have you been able to establish a system of trans- 
portation for the children which is satisfactory to the 
people generally, and which does not operate as a hardship 
upon the children ? 

The answers may be summarized as follows : 

1. Land values have a tendency to increase rapidly as 
soon as a consolidated school is well established. 

2. The agricultural and industrial training in particular 
has aroused great enthusiasm for the new school, and the 
work of the consolidated school is far superior to that of 
the former schools. 

3. Even where opposition is strong to consolidation 
when first established, people's attitude is completely 
reversed within a few years. Scarcely a district can be 
found which would go back to the old system after a school 
has been in operation for a year or more. 

4. The teaching force compares favorably in education 
and ability with those employed in progressive city sys- 
tems, and good teachers are easily obtained for the 
consolidated schools. 

5. Real hardships in the transportation of children are 

[ 173 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

not often met. Long routes and careless supervision of 
drivers have been the principal sources of trouble in the 
earlier consolidation projects. A businesslike manage- 
ment and district ownership of wagons quickly overcome 
most of the objections. 

Dr. Finnegan has also received many letters from dis- 
tricts in his own state where consolidated schools are in 
operation, of which the following is typical : 

Worcester, New York 
September 15, 1916 
Dr. Thomas E. Finnegan 
Assistant Commissioner 

Education Department, Albany, New York. 
Dear Sir: 

I am owner of a farm in Union Free School District No. 3, 
Westford Township, Otsego County, New York. In 1915 six 
school districts consolidated. 

,1 was strongly opposed to the consolidation and to the new 
school, and I harbored resentment toward our district superin- 
tendent for establishing it. After one year's trial and obser- 
vation I have changed my mind. We are delighted with the new 
regime. Our twelve-year-old girl passed the Regents' examina- 
tion in English, geography, arithmetic and United States history 
during the year. She is now entering the high school department. 
For six district teachers in poorly equipped buildings we have 
received five normal school and college graduates in one modern 
plant. The work is now graded and scientifically conducted, 
while an automobile school-bus calls at our door daily to trans- 
port the children. No one with a family to educate would will- 
ingly go back to the old conditions. 

Very truly yours, 

L. J. Coe 

No one can read a letter like that without wondering 
how much longer it will take the average American farmer 
to sense the real value of the consolidated school. 

[ 174] 



COST OF CONSOLIDATION 
THE COST OF CONSOLIDATION 

Under ordinary conditions a rural district must pay a 
higher tax to support a consolidated school than it does 
to support a one-room district school. The 

•i Comparative 

reasons for this are sell-evident. While the cost of con- 
average cost of education per pupil per day of solidated and 

f . . n i i • i district schools 

actual attendance in a small school is known 
to be excessively high, it must not be forgotten that the 
ideal consolidated school offers so many additional ad- 
vantages over the one-room school that the aggregate cost 
to the new district can hardly fail to exceed that of the 
former district schools. 

In the first place, a new central building is usually 
required whenever a large consolidated district has been 
formed. Such a building, capable of housing from 150 to 
300 pupils and having adequate high school quarters and 
industrial departments, will cost from $25,000 to $50,000, 
according to standard requirements and local conditions 
in the various states. Even if it replaces from five to ten 
one-teacher schools, the old districts would very likely 
spend less than half that sum for new one-room buildings 
in several districts. An increased tax, therefore, to meet 
the interest on the building bonds and gradually retire 
them, would be inevitable. 

In the second place, while the number of grade teachers 
in the new school would probably be less than the number 
formerly employed in the district schools, the extra high 
school teachers and principal, whose salaries would be 
relatively high, would mean at least a slight increase in 
the cost of instruction. 

In the third place, the expenditure for transportation 
is an entirely new and important item, which alone will 
decidedly increase the school tax. 

[ 175 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

Finally, the equipment and upkeep of the new manual- 
training and other industrial departments and the science 
laboratory call for extra expense, because none of these 
played an important part in the district schools; and an 
additional item may also result from the employment of a 
janitor, since district school boards frequently expect the 
teacher to be her own janitor. 

Unless, then, the state grants substantial special aid to 
consolidated schools to help defray the extra expenses 
resulting from these improvements, the school tax of the 
district will increase materially. A concrete example will 
make this perfectly clear. Suppose that a township in 
the Upper Mississippi Valley, which has been enrolling a 
total of 180 pupils in nine small one-teacher 
schools, should consolidate the entire nine 
districts into a single district and spend $50,000 for the 
erection and equipment of an up-to-date school building. 
Because of the added high school department and in- 
dustrial work, the enrollment of the central school would 
increase to 200 pupils, at least, during the first year and 
would soon exceed that number. The annual cost, for a 
term of nine months, without the retirement of the bonds, 
would be substantially as follows : 

Annual salary of the superintendent for twelve months . . $1200 

Annual salary of one high school teacher for nine months . . 675 

Annual salary of five other teachers for nine months .... 2700 

Annual salary of janitor for nine months 540 

Fuel bill and janitor's supplies 500 

Library and textbooks for 200 pupils 200 

Other supplies for pupils, including apparatus 400 

Insurance, incidentals, and upkeep of building 400 

Interest on $50,000 bonds at five per cent 2500 

Salary of ten drivers at $50 per month 4500 

Administrative expenses of school board 175 

Total cost of school for the year $13,790 

[ 176 1 



COST OF CONSOLIDATION 

In contrast with this, the cost of each of the nine one- 
room schools, by allowing for an investment of $3000 in 
a new school building and reasonable equipment, would 
average as follows for a term of nine months : 

Salary of teacher at $60 per month $540 

Books for twenty pupils 20 

Other supplies and apparatus 40 

Fuel and care of building during school term 75 

Annual upkeep of building and insurance 50 

Interest on $3000 bonds at five per cent 150 

Administrative expenses of school board 25 

Total cost of school for the year $900 

Total cost of nine schools $8100 

If every dollar of the school tax were borne by the local 
township or school districts alone, and both personal and 
real property were considered as one item for Analysis of cost 
each of the 144 farms of 160 acres in the town- and results 
ship, the school tax for the consolidated school would aver- 
age $95.76 per quarter-section farm, and §56. %5 per quarter- 
section farm for the several district schools. It will be 
observed further that nearly four fifths of the entire in- 
crease in school tax is due to the cost of transporting pupils. 

In fact, if we bear in mind that a substantial brick 
building should last at least forty years and that the one- 
room frame buildings would need to be replaced by new 
ones in twenty or twenty-five years, the bond issues for a 
term of forty years would nearly equalize between the 
two systems and the difference in cost result almost 
entirely from the expenditure for transportation in the 
consolidated district. In justice to the rural people, 
therefore, the entire cost of transportation should be de- 
frayed by the state from the general revenue fund, for it 
represents the natural handicap to which farmers are 
subject in order to get their children to a good school, a 

[ 177 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

condition which does not confront urban or village people. 
Another important consideration is that, in practically 
every state, a portion of the cost of education is derived 
from general state levies, special state aid or permanent 
school funds invested, so that from one fifth to one half 
the total school tax is paid by the state, and the district 
tax for the consolidated school here described would most 
likely be somewhere between $50 and $75 per quarter- 
section farm, and that of the one-room schools from $28 
to $40 for the same size of farm. 

These figures will, of course, differ in the several states, 
and in different sections of the same state, but any varia- 
tions will not materially alter the comparative cost of the 
two systems. In a sparsely settled township with a hun- 
dred or fewer school children enrolled, the new central 
buildings could be erected and equipped for one half or 
two thirds the cost, the faculty be reduced to four or five 
teachers, and several of the school wagons be eliminated. 
This might reduce the total cost of the school to less than 
$7500 ; but, on the other hand, such a township would prob- 
ably have but five or six district schools instead of nine, 
and its district school expenditures would correspondingly 
be lowered to $4500 or $5000. It would be still less if no 
allowance were made for new one-room buildings and 
the interest charge on bonds were eliminated; and it 
would be reduced further still if the cost of a seven or eight 
months' term in the one-room schools were compared with 
that of a nine months' term in the central school. Since 
the average length of the school term in many country 
districts is but seven or eight ■ months, the total school 
expenditures of all the districts combined, before con- 
solidation, is less than half the total expenditures of the 
consolidated district. This bears out the assertion made in 
Chapter IV, under the head of "Rural School Taxes," 

[ 178 ] 



COST OF CONSOLIDATION 

that in order to get any kind of satisfactory support for 
our rural schools the local tax in most country districts 
must be doubled. 

So far this comparison has dealt with aggregate cost 
and total amount of school taxes only, without reference 
to educational values. In the one case the The other side 
child walks to a school capable of furnishing of the picture 
him but the modicum of a modern education, while in the 
other he is conveyed at public expense to a school that 
offers him a complete high school course, provides for him 
all the comforts and social opportunities of a first-class 
school, and places him on an equal footing, educationally, 
with the urban child. To say, then, that the training in 
the consolidated school is worth double that of the one- 
teacher school is conservative indeed. But another phase 
of the comparison deserves special attention. 

The invariable increase of the average attendance in 
days per pupil, and the increased enrollment of the central 
school over the former district schools, are two important 
features of consolidation everywhere. These factors work 
some remarkable changes in the comparative cost of the 
two systems, if due allowance be made for attendance and 
enrollment. The drawing power of the consolidated school 
is best appreciated from the following data gleaned from 
the reports for 1916 of several states. In Oklahoma, for 
example, the average daily attendance in 59 consolidated 
schools for the year was 158 pupils, against 102 pupils in 
the one-room schools of this territory before consolidation, 
or an increase of 55 per cent. In Tennessee, 34 con- 
solidated schools showed an increased enrollment of 29.4 
per cent, and an increase in average daily attendance of 
42.77 per cent, over the former district schools. Similarly 
the consolidated schools of North Dakota, with an average 
school term of nine months, had an average daily attend- 

[ 179] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

ance of 94 per cent of the enrollment, while the one-room 
schools displaced had but an average daily attendance of 
64 per cent of the enrollment for a term of seven and a half 
months, which makes an increased total attendance of 76.3 
per cent for the consolidated schools. 

Similar conditions exist in other states where consolida- 
tion has had a fair trial, but exact data are difficult to 
obtain because of the meager state-wide reports on con- 
solidated schools. It is quite probable, therefore, that 
the total attendance in days for all pupils in the con- 
solidated schools exceeds that of the former district 
schools by nearly 50 per cent. If this be true, the cost of 
schooling per pupil per day of actual attendance in the 
consolidated school is about equal to the cost per pupil 
per day of actual attendance in the former district schools. 
It may even be considerably below that of the small rural 
school with an enrollment of ten pupils or less. This is 
what most educators have in mind when they assert that 
the consolidated school costs no more, or costs less, than 
the one-room school. It is the scientific method of com- 
puting the cost of education and the true measure of actual 
accomplishments; but the statement appears wholly 
untrue to the average farmer, who is thinking of the aggre- 
gate cost of education per farm or per school district. The 
confusion of these two items has caused much misunder- 
standing between the exponents and opponents of con- 
solidation, and every real friend of the country school 
should keep the distinction clearly in mind and help to 
correct any mistaken notions on this important subject. 

Economy was at first undoubtedly the predominant 
thought which led to the closing of small rural schools 
and the transfer of pupils to conveniently located adjoining 
schools. As a result of this, the consolidated school has 
suffered much from short-sighted persons who cared less 

[ 180] 



COST OF CONSOLIDATION 

for the educational advantages accruing to the children 
under the new management than they did for saving the 
district a few dollars in school taxes. The 

. Principal mo- 

economy argument appealed especially to the tive back of the 
voters and taxpayers living under the pure early consolida - 

. . . . . tion movement 

township organization, where school taxes 
were uniform for the entire township. If pupils from the 
small, outlying rural schools could readily be transferred 
to villages conveniently located within the township 
without necessitating an increased teaching force or an 
enlargement of the school building in the central school 
district, a financial saving for all taxpayers usually resulted 
from the closing of such schools. This was true more 
particularly if the children transferred furnished their 
own conveyance to the central school or their parents 
received but small compensation for this private trans- 
portation. Even where all the children of the closed 
schools were transported at public expense, there was still 
a possible saving so long as no extra teachers were required 
in the central school, and, incidentally, the children 
enjoyed and profited by the greater educational oppor- 
tunities of the central graded school. 

The early history of consolidation in the New England 
states and Indiana is full of examples of this kind, and 
similar conditions prevailed in many of the union schools 
of the South. Today the question of financial saving and 
lower tax rates in consolidation has been subordinated 
entirely to that of educational betterment. Instead of 
appealing to the cheap and shoddy, we emphasize up-to- 
date school plants, trained teachers, and safety and com- 
fort of transportation — the best in education that a school 
district is able to provide. 



[ 181 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 
Past, Present, and Future of Consolidation 

CONSOLIDATED schools have existed in some parts 
of our country for many years, but until recently no- 
table progress in the movement was confined to a few 
pioneer states. In the last decade, however, the leaven 
Consolidation of consolidation has permeated every state, 
not a new idea anc } ^ e i n fl uence f the new school has pene- 
trated to the remotest regions of rural America. While 
still in its infancy and lacking the legal authority to make 
it a live issue in some of the states, in others wise legis- 
lation and enthusiastic champions have accelerated its 
growth. The history of consolidation is interesting and 
instructive, but limited space permits only a bird's-eye 
view of its progress in the several states. 

Massachusetts is credited with having struck the 

first blow at the inefficient one-room school by the 

passage of the following act in 1869: "Any 

Massachusetts , ,1 ^ i.i u 

town in the Commonwealth may raise by 
taxation or otherwise and appropriate money to be ex- 
pended by the school committee in their discretion in 
providing for the conveyance of pupils to and from the 
public schools." 

It appears that the law was not actually tried out until 
1874, when a small school in the town of Quincy was 
abandoned and its pupils were transported to a neighbor- 
ing one-teacher school. Outside of saving the taxpayers 
a little money, no educational benefits resulted from this 
experiment, but in 1875 a real consolidated central school 
building was erected at Montague. This school serves a 
territory of about twenty sections and has a complete 
high school department accredited by the New England 
college entrance board. It has been a complete success 

[ 182 ] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

from the start and has transported pupils for over forty 
years. In 1879 another excellent school at Concord 
replaced five small district schools and later absorbed 
all the small schools of the township. 

When the state abandoned its district organization in 
1882 and substituted the township unit, consolidation 
of schools and transportation of pupils advanced rapidly. 
The growth is best appreciated by the amount of money 
which the state expends annually for the transportation 
of pupils, as shown by the following schedule : 
Aggregate Cost of Transportation 
tear amount expended 

1888-89 $22,118.38 

1890-91 30,648.08 

1895-96 91,136.11 

1900-01 151,773.47 

1905-06 236,415.40 

1910-11 329,857.13 

1915-16 493,605.10 

1916-17 539,129.41 

Out of a total of 19,003 persons on the teaching staff 
of Massachusetts in 1916, only 965 were engaged in 
teaching one-room schools. The state is without a peer 
in the successful elimination of its one-room schools. 

Indiana, the pioneer of consolidation in the Mississippi 
Valley, heads the roll of honor in the number of pupils 
conveyed and in the number of high-class 
consolidated schools. The Hoosier common- 
wealth celebrated its centennial existence in 1916, but 
sixty years before that event her state superintendent of 
public instruction, the Hon. Caleb Mills, penned, in his 
annual report, these significant lines on the efficiency of 
the one-room school : 

The superior wisdom and economy of the large over the small 
districts become apparent on a fair exhibit and impartial com- 

[ 183] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

parison of their legitimate results. A township of thirty-six 
square miles may be divided into districts of two miles square, 
as many of them really are. Thus carved, it presents nine cozy 
quasi-corporations with a corresponding number of children, 
often so small as to forbid the establishment of a school, or if 
established, so insignificant as to belittle the enterprise and leave 
an unfavorable impression of its real character and consequence 
on the public mind. These nine schools, enfeebled by their 
numerical poverty, languish, droop, and become so attenuated 
that it is difficult to ascertain whether there is any literary life 
or activity in either teacher or taught. It is a very natural con- 
clusion that is often reached and acted on by trustees, that the 
schools are too small to justify the employment of first-class 
teachers, and therefore an inferior grade is sought and installed 
in these centers of literature and science to engineer their charge 
through the sublime mysteries of their own ignorance, put in their 
time, and obtain a certified claim to a portion of the public funds. 
A more legitimate conclusion from given premises was never 
reached than that small districts insure small and ill-furnished 
structures, short terms, incompetent teachers and corresponding 
instruction, lifeless schools, and unawakened intellects. 

The effect of this indictment of the small school was 
never forgotten, and the zeal of Indiana's undaunted 
leaders never fagged, until today the state's record of 
achievement stands supreme. Out of a total of 706 con- 
solidated schools last year, 530 transported 46,997 pupils 
at a cost of nearly a million dollars, and 430 of the schools 
were of high school rank, employing four or more teachers. 
Indiana has permanently closed the doors of more than 
2000 one-room schools ; but this brilliant record was the 
result of the following favorable conditions : 

1. The township system of school organization pre- 
vails throughout the state, and a single trustee has almost 
complete control over all the township schools. 

2. The state has strengthened the school officer's posi- 
[ 184] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

tion and authority by the passage of three important 
laws; namely, (a) the compulsory education law of 
1899, which not only compels the attendance of pupils 
throughout the school year but allows the trustee to 
transport all pupils living more than two miles from a 
public school ; (6) a law, passed in 1901, compelling the 
closing of all schools with less than an average daily at- 
tendance of twelve pupils and making it optional with the 
trustee to close schools whose average daily attendance is 
between twelve and fifteen pupils if in his judgment better 
results may be obtained by consolidation; (c) an act, 
passed in 1907, making transportation of pupils in all 
consolidated schools compulsory. 

This legal backing and the enthusiastic support of 
teachers and superintendents has placed Indiana in the 
front rank of the consolidation movement. The following 
letter from County Superintendent Lee L. Driver, of 
Randolph County, the banner county in consolidation in 
the United States, indicates the attitude of Indiana's 
progressive superintendents on this great question : 

Winchester, Indiana 
January 28, 1918 
My dear Mr. Arp : 

I received your bulletin on consolidation of Rural Schools. It 
is the solution of the country schools. 

When I was elected superintendent of this county, ten years 
ago, I was against consolidation of schools, but my first year's 
experience convinced me of my mistake. We had at that time 
131 one-room schools. We now have but eighteen, and at least 
four of these will be abandoned this year. We have nineteen 
consolidated schools in the county, one two-room, the other 
eighteen ranging from five to twelve rooms. Fifteen of these 
schools maintain a four-years' commissioned high school. Eight 
years ago, our high school attendance in township commissioned 
schools was sixty-one. This year it is 683. Our per cent of 

[ 185] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

eighth-year graduates to enter high school has increased from an 
average of forty to ninety-three; 230 out of 242 eighth-year 
graduates in 1915 entered high school that year. In 1916, 232 
out of 240 entered high school, and in 1917, 243 out of 253. 

We are now transporting 2603 children at public expense. 
Three schools go by traction, and the remainder are transported 
in 112 school wagons, seventeen carriages, and ten auto busses. 

Three of our schools are located in towns, three others are near 
towns, and the remainder are out in the open country. Three 
of them have school cottages, and two have the janitors (single 
men) living in the building. All these buildings are equipped 
with the flush system of toilets, and drinking fountains. Six 
of them have shower baths. Each is equipped for manual train- 
ing, sewing, cooking, and agriculture. Each also has a piano 
and some of them have two, a victrola, and a special teacher of 
music and art. Eleven maintain five-number lecture courses 
in addition to many local entertainments and community meet- 
ings. Eighty -nine and one-half per cent of our children are now 
in graded schools. 

We have spent $600,000 in this county the past nine years, in 
school improvement ; so you can see why I am especially inter- 
ested in the consolidated school movement. 

Very truly yours, 

Lee L. Driver 
Superintendent Randolph County 

Kingsville Township in Ashtabula County, Ohio, 
was granted the right to defray the cost of transporting 
pupils to the public school, by a special law 
passed in 1894 ; and this gave an opening 
wedge for consolidated or " centralized " schools, as they 
are called in that state. The law was extended at the 
next session of the general assembly to apply to a few other 
counties, and in 1898 was made general throughout the 
state. It was supplemented in 1904 by another act 
which authorized the township board to close the schools 

[ 186 ] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

of any and all sub-districts and to transport the pupils to 
a central school, except that a school with twelve or more 
pupils could not be closed against the wishes of the majority 
of the voters in the district. The effect of these laws was 
immediate and pronounced, and the state had 178 central 
schools in 1910, 358 in 1914, 468 in 1915, and 539 in 1916. 

Official state-wide reports on consolidation are meager, 
but County Superintendent J. C. Neer of Champaign 
County reported in 1917 that $235,000 had been spent 
in his county alone for central school buildings during the 
past five years, and that 1273 pupils were being trans- 
ported daily in seventy-one school wagons; no school 
once consolidated had ever made an attempt to go back 
to the old way, and less than thirty one-room schools 
remained in the county. Preble County, another of the 
progressive counties in the state, has consolidated more 
than two thirds of its small schools. All the central schools 
employ not less than five teachers and offer from three to 
four years of high school work. 

That the compelling force back of the consolidated 
school is not wealth or density of population, but rather 
an enlightened, energetic, and progressive 
rural citizenship, is fully demonstrated by 
the youthful state of North Dakota. A look at its in- 
teresting Consolidated School Map shows that the sparsely 
settled counties of the northern half of the state easily 
lead the wealthier counties of the southeastern portion in 
the number of consolidated schools. In proportion to 
its population, North Dakota holds first place in the 
Union in the number of its consolidated schools. 

Of the 447 schools reported in 1917, 295 are classed as 
town or village consolidations and 152 as open-country 
consolidations. The number of consolidated schools has 
increased 295 per cent in the past six years. Naturally, 

[ 187 J 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 




Date and Number 

Year 1911, 114 — 

" 1917, 447 » 



Town, 295 B Open Country, 152 Total, 447 

Growth of Consolidated Schools 



Increase 
over Year 1911 
i 292 per cent 



The Chief Causes of Growth 
1. State Aid 2. Educational Campaign 

Map showing consolidated schools in North Dakota 

{Prepared by N. C. Macdonald, Superintendent of Public Instruction) 



many of these districts pay a comparatively high tax, 
but they do it cheerfully and have no desire to return to 
the former one-teacher schools under any circumstances. 
In twenty-five open-country consolidations for the year 
ending June, 1915, the average area per district was 
thirty-one sections ; the assessed valuation was $120,000, 
varying from a minimum of $80,000 to a maximum of 
$180,000 per district ; and the average rate of school tax 
was 21 mills, varying from a minimum of 11 mills to a max- 
imum of 31 mills. 

Special attention should be directed to the fact that 
the states of Massachusetts, Indiana, Ohio, and North 
Dakota (except four counties) are all organized on the 
township plan, but Ohio has lately taken another step 

[ 188] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

and advanced to the county system of organization. 
This accounts very largely for the phenomenal growth of 
consolidated schools in all of them. Progress success 
is still easier and simpler where a strong greatest under 

... „ township and 

centralized county system prevails, as may county 
be seen in some of the Southern states; systems 
but under the district system, consolidation is com- 
paratively slow unless stimulated by substantial grants 
of state aid. 

Louisiana is the leader in the movement for the pure 
county type of school. The blessings of the new school 
entered the state by a side door, so to speak. 
A cyclone in the parish (county) of Lafayette 
had destroyed a one-room school building during the 
school term, and in order to avoid loss of time for 
the children, two public-spirited citizens of the district 
offered the board a conveyance free of charge to take the 
children to a neighboring graded school in the town of 
Scott. This venture proved so successful from the begin- 
ning that the parish board decided not to rebuild the one- 
room school but to furnish a wagonette and make the 
transportation permanent. 

From this strange beginning in 1902, the idea spread 
rapidly, so that by 1917 the state had a total of 600 con- 
solidated schools ; but out of this number only 200 actually 
transported children at public expense, and only 100 had 
four or more teachers. Most of the schools are, there- 
fore, of the smaller type. The parish boards have power 
to resort to different methods of transporting children 
from closed to central schools. They may provide 
wagonettes and hire men and teams ; they may hire men 
who furnish their own teams and wagonettes ; they may 
also pay a parent a certain sum per month for each day 
his child attends a central school; or they may let the 

[ 189 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

smaller children attend a one-room school near home and 
pay the older children for attending a central high school. 
Forty-two of the consolidated districts have erected 
teachers' homes in connection with their schools. 

Another Southern state with a good record in con- 
solidation is Mississippi. Of 290 such schools actually 

in operation and transporting pupils last 

year, 190 employed four or more teachers 
each, and 725 wagons were used to transport over 14,000 
children, at an average cost of $35 per month per wagon. 
The state has provided thirty teachers' homes, and four 
of these received $1000 building aid from the special fund 
of the General Education Board mentioned in Chapter IX. 
The road to consolidation in states where the dis- 
trict system prevails is full of trials and tribulations. 

The reluctance of the voters in each little 
MMoUdLion school district to give up the local organiza- 
under district tion is so great that strong protests against 

any change often follow the rural represent- 
atives into the halls of the state legislatures, in order to 
prevent the passage of laws favorable to consolidation. 
Even when such laws have been enacted, action usually 
depends upon local initiative to petition and call an elec- 
tion before schools can be consolidated. For this reason 
only three states having the district form of organization 
— Minnesota, Iowa, and Washington — have so far 
made much progress in rural school consolidation. To 
make success possible, these states had to provide by law 
for two things : (1) grant special state aid for transpor- 
tation, equipment, or maintenance as an inducement to 
consolidate; and (2) let the majority vote of the entire 
territory decide the question, after one fourth or one third 
the resident freeholders have petitioned for an election. 
Whenever districts are allowed to vote separately, and a 
[ 190 ] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

majority vote in each district is required before con- 
solidation can be effected, progress moves at a snail's 
pace. 

Minnesota's experience in this movement is illuminat- 
ing. Its first consolidation law, permitting two or more 
districts to consolidate but requiring an af- Lessons from 
firmative majority vote in each district sepa- Minnesota 
rately and granting no financial state aid, was passed in 
1901, and during the next ten years only one large con- 
solidated school at Lewiston and a few minor ones were 
established. But in 1911, when a new law was enacted 
granting liberal state aid and requiring only a majority vote 
of the entire territory affected, the response was immediate 
and gratifying. Two hundred and fifty excellent consoli- 
dated schools, whose standards in buildings, equipment, 
teaching force, and transportation facilities are second to 
none in the nation, have been the fruits of this law. To 
encourage schools of the highest type, the state grants a 
building aid of one fourth the cost of the new building, 
but limits the maximum grant for any building to $2000. 
In addition, it offers annually the sum of $500 as "Con- 
solidation Aid," $150 for each grade teacher and $250 
for each high school teacher employed, until this ad- 
ditional aid for a complete high school reaches the sum 
of $1800 per annum. It also pays the entire transporta- 
tion bill up to $2000 a year. An accredited rural high 
school may, therefore, receive a total of $4700 annually 
for consolidation, transportation, and high school aid. 
This does not include the so-called "state apportion- 
ment" per pupil derived from the interest on the per- 
manent school fund, which is now about $7 for every child 
between five and twenty-one years of age who attends not 
less than forty days during the school year, so that $1400 
more would be added to the above sum if 200 pupils were 

[191 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

enrolled in the school. Consequently, the state defrays 
practically one half the cost of maintenance of a good 
Minnesota consolidated school, and that policy has been 
the secret of the state's success in consolidation. 

The consolidation laws of Iowa and Washington are 
similar to that of Minnesota, except that the special state 
iowa and a *d in either state is much less. In Iowa, the 

Washington maximum annual aid for maintenance is $750, 
and there is also an initial aid for equipment amounting 
to $500. Iowa's record of 196 consolidated schools by 
June, 1917, four fifths of which had been organized in the 
last three years, shows what strides the state is making 
in consolidation. A great many of these central schools 
are located in towns of 2000 inhabitants or fewer, so that 
all but one of the 196 schools are of the larger type and 
offering two or more years of high school work. The 
picture of the beautiful high school building at Spirit 
Lake, Dickinson County, chosen for the frontispiece of 
this book, is an index of the generous support which the 
people give these schools. 

Washington's achievement in establishing 218 consoli- 
dated schools up to the present writing is remarkable be- 
cause of the difficulties encountered in the transporta- 
tion of pupils. 1 The state aid amounts to about $200 
annually for every abandoned district school. Texas is 
the only state which exceeds Washington in the number 
of teachers' homes. 

Among the Eastern states, New Jersey ranks next to 
Massachusetts in the number and excellence of her con- 
solidated schools, and New York's progress 

Consolidation . . . i- i i 

in other is gratifying. Pennsylvania has accomplished 

states ^ e j eas t m proportion to its size and popula- 

tion, a condition due largely to the topography of the 

1 See Chapter X. 
[ 192 ) 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

country. West Virginia faces the same handicap, but 
twenty-four schools are now transporting pupils, and 
others have been consolidated without transportation. 
In the Southern states there is rapid progress everywhere, 
favored by the county system of organization. 

Oklahoma and Arkansas have both succeeded in es- 
tablishing over 100 consolidated and union schools, in 
spite of the fact that they are operating under the dis- 
trict system. Their latest consolidated schools and school 
buildings compare favorably with the better class in other 
states. California, Oregon, Colorado, Missouri, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and Illinois have accomplished little because of 
the district system, and because of the fact that the state 
laws require an affirmative majority vote of each district 
before consolidation can be effected. In South Dakota 
twenty -five per cent of the voters in each district may 
petition for an election, but it requires a three-fourths 
majority vote to carry the election. This large per- 
centage is difficult to obtain, and the state has but few 
consolidated schools. 

No better illustration of the effect of unfavorable legis- 
lation and the district system on the one hand, and dis- 
tinctly favorable laws and the township organization on 
the other, can be found than in the neighboring states of 
Illinois and Indiana. The latter stands at the head of 
consolidation in the Mississippi Valley, and the former 
at the foot. In Illinois there has been until recently no 
law permitting the transportation of children at public 
expense, and the state law requires further that before 
two or more districts can consolidate, a majority of the 
votes in each district must be in the affirmative. Con- 
sequently, Illinois has but five consolidated schools, against 
more than 700 in Indiana. 

Utah has barely a dozen one-room schools in the state, 

[ 193 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

because her people do not live on scattered farms but in 
villages clustered in the fertile, irrigated valleys. Con- 
solidation is, however, taking place among the schools of 
neighboring villages. Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Ten- 
nessee, and Kentucky are making rapid progress in con- 
solidation, and Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico, 
and Arizona have all made a beginning. 

Summing up the entire situation, it is fair to say that 
rural America has crossed the border line and set foot 
The present into the realm of the mightiest movement in 
status rural school improvement that has taken 

place in generations. According to Commissioner P. P. 
Claxton, the total number of consolidated schools of all 
kinds in February, 1917, was not less than 7500, over 
half of which had been established in the last three years. 
At the present rate of progress there will be not less 
than 10,000 such schools in 1920 ; but even that number 
will represent less than one fourth the number of con- 
solidated schools that might be built by that time if the 
people could be made to realize the value and necessity of 
the change. 

The growth of consolidation has already surpassed the 
wildest dreams of its stanchest friends, and in another 
decade the movement will sweep the country. Of all the 
plans, suggestions, and experiments proposed and tried 
to redirect, revitalize, revivify, reorganize, rebuild, and 
enrich the rural school to meet the educational demands 
of the twentieth-century farmer, the consolidated school 
stands supreme as the only complete and adequate method 
to meet that need. Every other scheme advanced has so 
far been swallowed up in the quicksands of twenty-five 
to thirty-five daily recitations and a maze of divers sub- 
jects in the one-room country school, from which only 
supermen and superwomen can extricate themselves. 

f 194 1 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

Of course, there is, among each 500 or 1000 rural 
teachers, some genius of strength, energy, and ability who 
can surmount every obstacle and perform miracles in a 
one-teacher school in the face of every discouragement 
and weakness inherent in the system. But those who are 
prone to exalt such teachers and such schools should 
remember that these rare beings are not the criterion by 
which one can measure the average country teacher or 
the possibilities of the one-teacher school. 

Nation-wide interest has been aroused in a small 
number of one-teacher schools because of the marvelous 
results achieved by a few masterful teachers The true 
like Marie Turner Harvey of the Porter meaning of 
School near Kirksville, Missouri, Miss ug U aHysuc- 
Mabel Carney of Illinois fame, Herbert cessfui one- 
Quick's "Brown Mouse" schoolmaster of roomsc oos 
Iowa, and Harold Foght's "John Tracy," holding a rural 
community in the palm of his hand "somewhere in the 
Middle West." Besides these well-advertised and famous 
schools, there are other district schools, par excellence, 
in every state, which are so far in advance of the aver- 
age in the matter of building, equipment, grounds, school 
spirit, and efficient service of able, consecrated teachers 
that they put the ordinary country school to shame. This 
is particularly true of the demonstration or model schools 
on the campus of the Kirksville, Missouri, Normal School 
and similar schools connected with the normal schools of 
other states, and to a less degree of those connected with 
high school training departments. They prove that rural 
communities can be awakened by extraordinary teachers 
to make extraordinary efforts and secure extraordinary 
results, especially under the stimulus of expert supervision 
and direction of the faculty of some normal school ; but 
it is ridiculous to assert that they prove the efficiency of 

[ 195 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

the one-room school or present a valid argument for a 
favorable comparison with consolidated schools. 

Suppose that Mrs. Harvey, Miss Carney, "John 
Tracy," and their colleagues had been placed at the 
head of good consolidated schools operating under similar 
conditions as their one-room schools ? Is it not reasonable 
to believe and expect that their genius and ability would 
have worked wonders in the consolidated schools and the 
larger rural communities, beside which the accomplish- 
ments in their one-teacher schools would have looked 
feeble indeed? The rural school must be made efficient 
without relying upon a few master teachers, for, at best, 
the Harveys, Carney s, and Tracy s tarry but briefly in 
any country school, no matter what salary may be offered 
them. They are too much in demand as supervisors, 
heads of normal departments, state inspectors, etc., and 
pass on to the higher positions in the educational field 
which offer inducements that no rural school can dupli- 
cate; and when they, in turn, are followed by average 
teachers, the school transformed by the rare genius quickly 
reverts to the average condition of an average one-room 
school. Therefore, we must create conditions in the coun- 
try school system which will make success possible for the 
average teacher of ability and enthusiasm, and not alone for 
the born genius. In no other way will country boys and 
girls get a square deal in education and farmers be given 
equal opportunities in life with people living in the city. 

Granted that the preceding analysis of the "rural 

school problem" is correct, what shall be our attitude 

toward the small country school during the 

The transition . ... • i ^ ^ u 

from the transition period r Common sense would 

one-teacher dictate that where the prospect for a change is 

bright, the present buildings may serve a 

little longer unless they are a menace to the health and 

[ 196 1 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

comfort of children and teachers. Buildings unfit to house 
children should not be tolerated as public schools, no 
matter how great the cost to remedy the evil. The 
health of a single child is worth more than the price of a 
school building. Communities with poor one-room school 
buildings should make every effort to induce neighboring 
districts to consolidate with them, but if there is no pros- 
pect of success they should not hesitate to erect modern, 
sanitary, comfortable schoolhouses of the best type. 

A number of states have enacted laws directing the 
state departments, or other central authorities, to con- 
demn unsanitary, inadequate, or unfit school standardizin 
buildings and to approve all plans and speci- the one-room 
fications of new ones. Others have pre- sch ° o1 
scribed state-wide regulations and conditions for stand- 
ardizing both new and existing rural schools. Illinois 
and Oregon, neither of which has as yet done anything 
worth mentioning in the line of consolidation, have done 
excellent work in standardizing many of their one-room 
schools. A similar policy has been pursued by Oklahoma 
and several neighboring states, while Wisconsin and 
Minnesota have accomplished like results by granting 
state aid and by making such aid largely dependent upon 
improvements in buildings, equipment, and teaching force. 

The state superintendent of Illinois has laid down the 
following twenty-nine points of excellence to be attained 
before a country school becomes a standard school : 



The Yard 

1. Ample playground. 

2. Good approaches to door and outhouses. 

3. Convenient and serviceable fuel houses. 



[ 197] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

The Schoolhouse 

4. House well built, in good repair, including paint. 

5. Good, tight foundation. 

6. Attractive interior decorations. 

7. Clean floors, walls, and furniture. 

8. Good blackboards, some suitable for small children. 

9. Two good cloakrooms. The one for girls should have one 

entrance only and that from the schoolroom. 

Furnishings and Supplies 

10. Two good pictures. (See State Course.) 

11. Good teacher's desk. 

12. Good bookcase. 

13. Good collection of juvenile books suitable as aids to school 

work as well as general reading. 

14. Set of good, up-to-date maps. 

15. Good globe. 

16. Suitable dictionaries. 

17. Thermometer. 

School Organization 

18. School classified to do the work of the State Course of 

Study. 

19. Classification and daily register well kept. 

20. Definite program of study. 

21. Program of recitation. 

22. Pupils' reading circle. 

23. At least seven months' continuous term. 

24. Attendance regular. 

25. Discipline : Instruction and spirit of the school good. 

The Teacher 

26. Education : Equivalent to a high school course. 

27. Salary not less than $40 per month. 

28. Ranked by county superintendent as good or superior 

teacher in a scale of poor, fair, good, superior. 

[198] 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

29. Must meet the county superintendent's requirements for 
professional interest and growth. 

To be rated as a "superior school," the following ad- 
ditional requirements must be met : 

1. At least one acre of school yard, neatly fenced, covered 
with a good sod and planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers, 
concrete walks to the entrance and to the closets. 

2. A well or cistern equipped with a sanitary drinking foun- 
tain within doors. 

3. Besides the schoolroom, there shall be a basement, work 
and play room, a cloakroom for each sex, and a library room. 

4. The library shall contain at least eighty juvenile books, 
ten suitable for each grade, and a good school encyclopedia, 
suitable dictionaries, and a supply of the bulletins published 
by the National Government and the University of Illinois, 
useful in the school and in the community. 

5. The pupils must be enrolled in the Illinois Pupils' Reading 
Circle and pursue the course of reading under the direction of the 
teacher and the county superintendent. 

6. A manual-training bench and tools, equipment for sewing 
and for instruction in elementary agriculture. These subjects 
shall be taught to pupils prepared to receive such instruction. 

7. There must be in operation a Parent-Teachers' Club which 
secures the hearty cooperation of the parents with the school. 

8. When the teacher under whose administration the school 
was recognized as "superior" ceases to teach the school, it must 
be re-inspected to remain so recognized. 

9. The teacher must hold a first-grade elementary school 
certificate, which is granted only to graduates of recognized 
normal schools or to those who have an equivalent preparation. 

Before schools are accepted as standard or superior 
schools, a representative of the state department visits 
and inspects those recommended by the county super- 
intendent, and if a school is found worthy of the recog- 
nition, a diploma of merit is issued by the state and a 

[ 199 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

neat metal plate is placed over the schoolhouse door. A 
school loses its rating upon neglect or failure to maintain 
the prescribed conditions. Out of 10,632 one-room 
country schools in Illinois, 2949 have already met the 
requirements for a standard school and sixteen for a su- 
perior school. 

Oklahoma has a plan of listing the physical features of 
a school in minute detail, allowing from five to twenty- 
five points per item, and the various items are grouped 
under these heads : (1) grounds and outhouses ; (2) the 
school building ; (3) equipment ; (4) organization. The 
total number of points possible is 1000, and schools are 
classified as "A," "B," or "C" class if they score between 
90 and 100 per cent, 75 and 90 per cent, or 50 and 75 per 
cent of the points, respectively. The scoring is done, in 
the first instance, by the teacher, but is rechecked by the 
county superintendent, upon whose recommendation the 
state classifies the school and issues the proper diploma. 
The scheme has exerted a powerful influence upon the 
schools of the state. 

Oregon's method of standardization is similar to that of 
Illinois. 

Aside from the fact that a district may not always be 
able to secure the services of a teacher who measures up 
to the scale of "good" or "superior," there is no reason 
why the other points enumerated as requirements for a 
standard school should not be met in intelligent American 
rural communities of every state. 

Considering the lack of professional supervision and 
direction, the range of subject matter, the number of 
classes and recitations, and the perplexing array of admin- 
istrative problems a rural teacher has to meet each day, 
her training ought to be superior to that of any other 
elementary teacher. But the unsatisfactory physical and 

f 200 1 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 

social conditions surrounding the one-teacher school in- 
terpose and make this impossible. Because of this, a 
steady exodus of the most efficient rural teach- The teacher 
ers to the cities and towns has been in prog- of the one- 
ress for more than a generation, and nothing room sch ° o1 
but the establishment of graded, consolidated schools will 
check it. Not even unusually high salaries in the one-room 
schools will attract and hold the better class of teachers. 

In practice, the country has been compelled to accept 
as teachers those who could not meet the educational quali- 
fications of school boards in the city or town schools. To 
make matters worse, most states have as yet inadequate 
facilities to give professional training to all new teachers 
and the town schools have absorbed nearly all the gradu- 
ates of the normal schools and other training depart- 
ments. Consequently, a large number of country teachers 
are poorly prepared for their arduous task. There is 
a noticeable improvement in the quality of the new re- 
cruits, however, in late years, and the time should soon 
be here when no one should be granted a state certificate, 
or allowed to teach the humblest public school, who has 
not graduated from a high school and taken the equiva- 
lent of at least a year's professional training under compe- 
tent instruction. The results from this meager equip- 
ment will be poor enough. 

Above all, those presuming to teach in the country 
school must be in sympathy with rural life, or disaster 
for school and teacher is sure to follow. While waiting 
for the dawn of a better day in the education of their 
respective neighborhoods, let all country teachers unite 
in support of a nation-wide program to raise the one- 
room school to its highest possible level. 

As the closing chapter of this book is being written, 
the world is still in the throes of a mighty conflict. Hu- 

[ 201 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

inanity is undergoing "the acid test" of unprecedented 

sacrifice in order to [understand the new freedom and the 

call of universal brotherhood. Democracy is 

The country ^ 

life of to- grappling with autocracy, and governments 

morrow an( j na tions are called before the judgment 

bar of the world to give an account of their deeds and 
their misdeeds. 

How the new world-map will look when a durable 
peace has been concluded, no one is yet able to predict ; 
but a changed social order is emerging from the chaos and 
beginning to loom up brighter and clearer each day. 
The millions of workers in office, factory, and field are 
stirred with a new feeling of responsibility and a new 
sense of power, born of concerted action in a common 
cause. Harmonious, national cooperation, on a gigantic 
scale, to cope with the financial situation after the war, 
is inevitable if the Ship of State is to weather the storm. 

If the American farmer expects to play his part in this 
program of reconstruction and reform, he must provide an 
education for himself and his children that shall fit them 
both for the task. Never before in the country's history 
has the need for better training of the rural population 
been so urgent as today, and never before has the demand 
for a new rural school been so clearly defined. 

Realizing the service and importance of the consolidated 
school, therefore, not only should the several states exert 
their strength in championing the cause of consolidation, 
but the Federal Bureau of Education should take im- 
mediate steps to organize a national force of experts and 
inaugurate a nation-wide campaign to further the move- 
ment. The farmers are entitled to a better education ; 
justice to their children dictates it, and the welfare of the 
nation demands it. 



202 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The literature on the consolidated school is chiefly confined 
to bulletins, pamphlets, and reports from the state departments 
of education and the Federal Bureau of Education, Washington, 
D.C. Only a few recent books on the rural school problem 
have attempted an extensive treatment of this new rural school, 
but the literature on various phases of "the rural problem" is 
so plentiful that only a limited number of the more recent works 
have been listed. The student will find in both the books and 
the pamphlets enumerated a wealth of information on rural 
education, rural life, and the rural community. 



Books 

1. Anderson, W. L. The Country Town. Baker & Taylor 

Company, 1906. 

2. Bailey, L. H. The Country-Life Movement. The Mac- 

millan Company, 1911. 

3. Bailey, L. H. The Training of Farmers. The Century 

Company, 1909. 

4. Betts, G. H., and Hall, O. E. Better Rural Schools. The 

Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1914. 

5. Bicker, G. A. Agricultural Education for Teachers. Ameri- 

can Book Company, 1914. 

6. Butterfield, K. L. Chapters in Rural Progress. Univer- 

sity of Chicago Press, 1908. 

7. Butterfield, K. L. The Country Church and the Rural 

Problem. University of Chicago Press, 1911. 

8. Carney, Mabel. Country Life and the Country School. 

Row, Peterson & Co., 1912. 

9. Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics. Ginn & 

Co., 1912. 

10. Challman, S. A. The Rural School Plant. The Bruce 

Publishing Company, 1917. 

11. Chamberlain, A. H. Ideals and Democracy. Rand, 

McNally & Co., 1913, 

[ 203 ] 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

12. Colgrove, C. P. The Teacher and the School. Charles 

Scribner's Sons, 1911. 

13. Country Life Commission Report. Government Printing 

Office. Washington, 1909. Reprinted by Sturgis and 
Walton, New York. 

14. Cubberley, E. P. Rural Life and Education. Houghton 

Mifflin Company, 1914. 

15. Cubberley, E. P. The Improvement of Rural Schools. 

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912. 

16. Cromwell, A. C. Agriculture and Life. J. B. Lippincott 

Company, 1915. 

17. Curtis, H. S. Play and Recreation for the Open Country. 

Ginn & Co., 1914. 

18. Davenport, E. Education for Efficiency. D. C. Heath & 

Co., 1909. 

19. Dresslar, F. B. School Hygiene. The Macmillan Com- 

pany, 1913. 

20. Eggleston, J. D., and Bruere, R. W. The Work of the 

Rural School. Harper & Brothers, 1913. 

21. Field, Jessie. The Corn Lady. A. Flanagan Company, 

1911. 

22. Fiske, G. W. The Challenge of the Country. Association 

Press, New York, 1912. 

23. Foght, H. W. The Rural Teacher and His Work. The 

Macmillan Company, 1917. 

24. Foght, H. W. The American Rural School. The Mac- 

millan Company, 1910. 

25. Hill, H. W. The New Public Health. The Macmillan 

Company, 1916. 

26. Hoag, E. B., and Terman, L. M. Health Work in the 

Schools. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. 

27. Kern, O. J. Among Country Schools. Ginn & Co., 

1906. 

28. King, I. Education for Social Efficiency. D. Appleton & 

Co., 1915. 

29. Kirkpatrick, M. G. The Rural School from Within. 

J. B. Lippincott Company, 1917. 

[ 204 1 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

SO. Lapp, J. A., and Mote, C. H. Learning to Earn. The 
Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1915. 

31. McKeever, W. A. Farm Boys and Girls. The Macmillan 

Company, 1913. 

32. Pickard, A. E. Rural Education. Webb Publishing Com- 

pany, St. Paul, 1915. 

33. Quick, H. The Brown Mouse. The Bobbs-Merrill Com- 

pany, 1915. 

34. Sanford, A. H. The Story of Agriculture in the United 

States. D. C. Heath & Co., 1915. 

35. Sims, N. L. Ultimate Democracy and Its Making. A. C. 

McClurg & Co., 1917. 

36. Plunkett, Sir H. C. The Rural Life Problem in the 

United States. The Macmillan Company, 1910. 

37. Steinmetz, C. P. America and the New Epoch. Harper & 

Brothers, 1916. 

38. Wilkinson, W. A. Rural School Management. Silver, 

Burdett & Co., 1917. 

39. Wilson, W. H. The Evolution of the Country Community. 

The Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1912. 

40. Wilson, W. H. The Church of the Open Country. Mission- 

ary Education Movement of the United States, New 
York, 1912. 

41. Woofter, T. J. Teaching in Rural Schools. Houghton 

Mifflin Company, 1917. 

Bulletins and Pamphlets 
(a) on consolidation 

42. Monahan, A. C. Consolidation of Rural Schools and 

Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense. United 
States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 30, 1914. 

43. Knorr, G. W. Consolidated Rural Schools and the Organi- 

zation of a County System. United States Department 
of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 232, 1910. 

44. Indiana. The Story of Rural School Consolidation in In- 

diana. Department of Public Instruction, Indianapolis. 

[ 205 1 



RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 

45. Illinois. One-room and Consolidated Schools of Illinois. 

Department of Public Instruction, Springfield, Circular 
No. 124, 1917. 

46. New Jersey. Improvement of Rural Schools by Means of 

Consolidation. Department of Public Instruction, Tren- 
ton, 1916. 

47. North Dakota. Annual Report of the State Inspector of 

Consolidated, Graded, and Rural Schools, 1916. State 
Board of Education, Bismarck. 

48. South Dakota. Consolidation of Schools, 1914. Depart- 

ment of Public Instruction, Pierre. 

49. Minnesota. Annual Report of the Rural School Commis- 

sioner. Department of Education, St. Paul. 

50. New York. Elementary Education. Vol. II, 1917. The 

University of the State of New York, Albany. 

Other valuable reports on consolidation may be obtained from 
the following state departments : Oklahoma, Tennessee, Loui- 
siana, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Washington. 

(b) ON MISCELLANEOUS RURAL TOPICS 

51. Indiana. Supervised Home-Project Work. Bulletin No. 19, 

1917. State Board of Education, Indianapolis. 

52. Gates, F. T. The Country School of Tomorrow. Occa- 

sional Papers, No. 1. General Education Board, New 
York City. 

53. Industrial Club Work of Oregon Boys and Girls, 1916. De- 

partment of Education, Salem, Oregon. 

54. Blair, F. G. Specifications for Sanitary Schoolrooms, 

Department of Public Instruction, Springfield, Illinois, 
1915. 

The following bulletins may all be obtained from the United 
States Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C. : 

55. Agricultural Teaching. No. 27, 1914. 

56. Cook, K. M., and Monahan, A. C. Rural School Super* 

vision. No. 48, 1916, 
[ 206 ] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

57. Foght, H. W. Efficiency and Preparation of Rural School 

Teachers. No. 49, 1914. 

58. Foght, H. W. The Danish Folk High Schools. No. 32. 

1914. 

59. Foght, H. W. Rural-Teacher Preparation in County 

Training Schools and High Schools. No. 31, 1917. 

60. Hodges, W. T. Important Features in Rural School Im- 

provement. No. 25, 1914. 

61. Friend, L. L. The Folk High Schools of Denmark. No. 5, 

1914. 

62. Monahan, A. C. The Status of Rural Education in the 

United States. No. 8, 1913. 

63. Monahan, A. C. County-Unit Organization for the Adminis- 

tration of Rural Schools. No. 44, 1914. 

64. Monahan, A. C, and Dye, C. H. A Comparison of the 

Salaries of Rural and Urban Superintendents of Schools. 
No. 33, 1917. 

65. Stimson, R. W. Massachusetts Home-Project Plan of Voca- 

tional, Agricultural Education. No. 8, 1914. 



[ 207 



INDEX 



Agricultural department of con- 
solidated school, 60, 61. 

Agricultural short courses, failure 
of, in Minnesota, 102-103. 

Agriculture, importance of, 11- 
13 ; the study of, 82-83. 

Alabama, records made by boys' 
and girls' club members in, 108, 
109. 

Alberta, Minn., teachers' home at, 
154-158. 

American Society of Equity, 137. 

Amusements, rural facilities for, 
119-120. 

Appearance of school buildings, 
57-58. 

Arithmetic teaching in rural 
schools, 71-72. 

Arizona, daily expense per pupil 
for education in, 41 ; beginning 
made in consolidation in, 194. 

Arkansas, conditions as to con- 
solidation in, 193. 

Art, teaching of, 80. 

Auditorium of consolidated school, 
60. 

Auto busses for transporting 
pupils, 165. 

Automobiles, national expenditure 
for, compared with expenditure 
for schools, 40 n., 41. 

Basements of schoolhouses, 58. 
Benson, O. H., club-work leader, 

105-106. 
Boys, rural and city, compared as 

to physique, 131-132. 
Boys' and girls' club work, 104- 

110. 
Brooklyn Center, Minn., country 

church at, 125-126. 

California, county libraries in, 
137 ; conditions as to consolida- 
tion in, 193. 

Carney, Mabel, 195. 

China, intensive agriculture in, 
16. 

Church, the country, 122-127. 



Cityward migration, the, 16-20. 

Civics, teaching of, 78. 

Claxton, Commissioner P. P., 
quoted on Ohio school laws, 
30; cited as to present status 
of consolidated school move- 
ment, 194. 

Club work, boys' and girls', 104- 
110. 

Coates, President T. J., quoted, 34. 

Colorado, conditions as to con- 
solidation in, 193. 

Consolidated school, defined, 50; 
the complete, 52. 

Cooke, Dr. L. J., quoted, 131- 
132. 

Cooking, teaching of, 84. 

Cooperative demonstration work, 
141. 

Cost of consolidation, 175-181. 

Country Life Commission, report 
of, 8. 

Countryside, beautifying the, 116- 
117. 

County agents, 141. 

County high schools, 91-93. 

County superintendent, an elected 
official, 23-26; change needed 
in method of choosing, 26-27; 
powers and duties of, 36-37. 

County system, of schools, 36- 
38 ; development of, 38-39 ; 
of school support, 46-47; of 
organization of consolidated 
schools, 188-189. 

Cubberley, E. P., Rural Life and 
Education, quoted, 10, 14. 

Curriculum of rural school, 67-90. 

Delaware, appointment of county 

superintendent in, 27. 
Democracy, education and, 1. 
Dewey, John, quoted, 1. 
District system of schools, 32-35 ; 

difficulty of consolidation under, 

190-192. 
District unit of school support, 46. 
Drawing, teaching of, 80. 
Driver, Lee L., letter by, 185-186. 

[ 209 ] 



INDEX 



Educational creeds, present-day, 

68-70. 
Experimental school farms, 55-56. 
Extension work in rural schools, 

97-110. 

Fairchild, E. T., cited, 78. 

Farm bureaus, 141-142. 

Farm demonstrators, 141. 

Farmers' Alliance, the, 143. 

Farmers' institutes, 139-140. 

Farmers' short courses, 140. 

Farmers' Union, the, 137. 

Farmhouse, the modern, 114-115. 

Farm life schools in North Caro- 
lina, 96. 

Farm products, statistics of, 13. 

Federal Land Act, 142. 

Finnegan, Dr. Thomas E., testi- 
mony of, as to efficiency of con- 
solidated school and the trans- 
portation of pupils, 172-174. 

Foght, H. W., cited, 87, 96; the 
"John Tracy" of, 195. 

Gardens, school, 54-55. 

General Education Board, appro- 
priation by, for teacherages, 154. 

Geography, teaching of, 75. 

Georgia, choosing of county super- 
intendents in, 28 ; union schools 
in, 50 ; high-school system in, 96. 

Gleaners, Order of the, 137. 

Grafelman, Fred, letter by, 155- 
158. 

Grammar, teaching of, 72-73. 

Grange, the, 134-137. 

Harvey, Marie Turner, 195. 
Health lessons, teaching of, 77-78. 
Health work, rural, 127-132. 
High school, the rural, 91-110. 
History teaching, 73-74. 
Hoag and Terman, Health Work 

in the Schools, quoted, 132. 
Holden, Professor P. G., 140. 
Home management, study of, 84. 
Hot lunches, 61, 84-85. 

Idaho, beginning made in con- 
solidation in, 194. 
Illinois, township high school 

[ 210 ] 



system in, 91-93; boys' and 
girls' clubs in, 104 ; country 
church conditions in, 122 ; teach- 
erages in, 155 ; conditions 
as to consolidation in, 193; 
method of standardization of 
one-room schools in, 197-200. 

Illiteracy, problem of rural, 98. 

Immigration, change in character 
of, 19-20. 

Indiana, choosing of county super- 
intendents in, 28; boys' and 
girls' club work in, 106-108; 
opinions of pupils in, concerning 
consolidation, 171-172; present 
conditions as to consolidated 
schools in, 183-186, 193. 

Industrial education, 80-81 ; op- 
position to, 85-86. 

International Harvester Company, 
agricultural extension work of, 
140. 

Intoxicating liquors, expenditures 
for, compared with expenditures 
for schools, 40 n., 41. 

Iowa, choosing of county super- 
intendents in, 25, 28, 29 ; rural 
high school provisions in, 94; 
volunteer continuation schools 
in, 99-100; boys' and girls' 
clubs in, 104 ; teacherages in, 
155 ; present conditions as to 
consolidation in, 192. 

Janitor service, 65-66; an addi- 
tional expense in consolidated 
schools, 176. 

Kansas, election of county super- 
intendents in, 25; rapid prog- 
ress in consolidation in, 194. 

Kelly, O. H., founder of the 
Grange, 134, 136. 

Kentucky, moonlight schools in, 
98-99; progress in consolida- 
tion in, 194. 

Kern, O. J., Among Country 
Schools, quoted, 10. 

King, Mrs. F. H., Farmers of 
Forty Centuries, cited, 16. 

Kitchen improvements, 115. 

Knapp, Dr. Seaman A., 105, 141. 



INDEX 



Libraries, school, 64, 138; rural, 
137-139. 

Lighting of schoolrooms, 62. 

Literature, teaching of, 80. 

Louisiana, choosing of county 
superintendents in, 28; effi- 
ciency of county or parish 
system in, 29; teacherages in, 
155; county system of con- 
solidated schools in, 189-190. 

Lunches, school, 61, 84-85. 

Manual training, 83-84. 

Maryland, choosing of county 
superintendents in, 28, 29. 

Massachusetts, teacherages in, 
155 ; pioneer consolidated 
schools in, 182-183. 

Michigan, conditions as to con- 
solidation in, 193. 

Mills, Caleb, quoted, 183. 

Minister, the modern rural, 124. 

Minnesota, elective system of 
county superintendents in, 25, 
31; state aid for high schools 
in, 93-94; experience of, in 
giving agricultural short courses 
in high schools, 102-103; state 
aid to school libraries in, 138; 
teacherages in, 154-158. 

Mississippi, daily expense per 
pupil for education in, 41 ; 
county high schools in, 96 ; corn- 
club association in, 105 ; teach- 
erages in, 155. 

Missouri, teacherage in, 155; 
conditions as to consolidation 
in, 193. 

Moonlight schools, 98-99. 

Music, teaching of, 80. 

Nebraska, election of county 
superintendents in, 25; rapid 
progress of consolidation in, 
194. 

Neer, County Superintendent J. 
C, cited, 187. 

Nevada, appointment of super- 
intendents in, 27. 

New Hampshire, amount spent 
annually for education in, 41. 



New Jersey, appointment of 
county superintendent in, 27; 
salaries in, 28; transportation 
of pupils in, 171 ; number and 
excellence of consolidated 
schools in, 192. 

New Mexico, teacherage in, 155. 

New York State, choosing of 
superintendents in, 27; boys' 
and girls' clubs in, 104; grati- 
fying progress of consolidation 
in, 192. 

Nicollet, Minn., teacherage, 154. 

North Carolina, choosing of county 
superintendents in, 28; farm 
life schools in, 96; teacherages 
in, 155. 

North Dakota, statistics of at- 
tendance at consolidated schools 
in, 179-180 ; present conditions 
as to consolidation in, 187 ; map 
of consolidated schools in, 188. 

Ohio, choosing of county super- 
intendents in, 25; excellent 
provisions of new code of school 
laws in, 30; county libraries 
in, 137; present conditions as 
to consolidated schools in, 186- 
187; county system of organi- 
zation in, 188-189. 

Oklahoma, amount spent annually 
for education in, 41 ; statistics 
of attendance in, 179 ; condi- 
tions as to consolidation in, 
193 ; standardizing of one-room 
schools in, 197, 200. 

Oregon, country church condi- 
tions in, 122; county library 
plan in, 137; conditions as to 
consolidation in, 193 ; standard- 
izing of one-room schools in, 
197, 200. 

Patriotism, history teaching and, 
73-74. 

Penmanship, teaching of, 79. 

Pennsylvania, election of super- 
intendents in, 27; boys' and 
girls' clubs in, 104; conditions 
as to consolidation in, 192. 

[211 ] 



INDEX 



Petersburg, Minn., teacherage at, 

154. 
Playgrounds, school, 54. 
Populist Party, the, 143. 
Preston, State Superintendent 

Josephine, quoted, 168-170. 
Principal of consolidated school, 

149-150. 

Reading, teaching of, 76-77. 
Ross, County Superintendent 

Katherine, 99-100. 
Rural life organizations, 133-144. 

Salaries of teachers, 145. 

Saturday half-holiday for farm 
workers, 120-121. 

School buildings, size of, 56-57; 
appearance and character of, 
57-58; basement of, 58; one- 
story and two-story, 59; unit 
plan, 59-60; special feature 
of consolidated, 60-65; care 
of, 65-66. 

School grounds, 53-55. 

School support, taxation and, 39- 
47, 175-181. 

School systems, types of, 32. 

School taxes and other taxes, 40. 

Sewing, teaching of, 84. 

Smith, W. H., club worker, 105. 

South Carolina, boys' and girls' 
clubs in, 105 ; corn-club records 
in, 109. 

South Dakota, law concerning 
county superintendent in, 26; 
teacherages in, 155 ; reason 
for few consolidated schools 
in, 193. 

Spelling, teaching of, 79-80. 

Spirit Lake, high school at, 192. 

Stewart, Cora Wilson, 98-99. 

"Suitcase teacher," the, 150-151. 

Superintendents, methods of 
choosing, 23-30. 

Taxation and school support, 39- 

47, 175-181. 
Teacher, the rural, 145-159. 
Teacherage, the, 152-159. 
Tennessee, appointment of county 

[ 212 1 



superintendents in, 28 ; state aid 
for teaching of agriculture in, 
96 ; teacherages in, 155 ; statis- 
tics of attendance at consoli- 
dated schools in, 179. 

Texas, teachers' homes in, 192; 
rapid progress in consolidation 
in, 194. 

Township high schools, 91-93. 

Township special schools, 99-100. 

Township system of schools, 35. 

Township unit of support, 46. 

Transportation of pupils, 160-174. 

Traveling libraries, 138. 

Union schools, 50-51. 

Utah, office of district superin- 
tendent in, 29 ; high school near 
Sandy, 97; progress of con- 
solidation in, 193-194. 

Vegetable gardens, school, 54. 

Vincent, Dr. George E., quoted 
on the teacherage, 158-159. 

Virginia, appointment of super- 
intendents in, 27; state aid for 
teaching of agriculture in, 96; 
boys' and girls' club work in, 
105. 

Vocational training, 80-81. 

Volunteer continuation schools, 
99-100. 

Washington (state), law concern- 
ing county superintendent in, 
26; transportation of pupils 
in, 168; present conditions as 
to consolidation in, 192. 

West Virginia, conditions as to 
consolidation in, 193. 

Wilson, Warren H., quoted and 
cited, 14-15, 111, 122. 

Wisconsin, election of county 
superintendents in, 25 ; con- 
ditions as to consolidation in, 
193. 

W^omen, the farm, 133, 144. 

Woofter, Thomas, quoted, 131. 

Wyoming, beginning made in 
consolidation in, 194. 

Young people's organizations, 134. 



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